It’s not like we expect the entire “Game of Thrones” soundtrack to be played on lutes and lyres, but there was something jarring about the 90’s-sounding rock anthem track overlaid on Monday’s new trailer for the HBO phenomenon.
And it wasn’t just the song’s Creed-like quality – a sound that’s ancient in its own right – that got our attention. It was the familiarity of the notes in the refrain, which sound an awful lot like the main melody line from the show’s theme. (Our sound expert, using a ukelele, verified that the note couplets are, indeed, identical.)
See video: ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 4 Trailer: Dragons, White Walkers And – Ugh – More Joffrey (Video)
So did HBO’s trailer jockeys meld this melodic metallurgy on purpose? Was it pure coincidence? Or are we just crazy here? (Don’t answer that).
We’ve asked HBO whether there’s something to it – and they’re kindly checking, on a holiday, despite the embarrassing frivolity of this request. In the meantime, tell us what you think: The videos below are rigged to start at the moment of tonal and temporal similarity:
From the trailer: “Cities in Dust,” by The Everlove:
From the “Game of Thrones” main theme:
If we haven’t lost you by now, the track from the new trailer is a cover of a Siouxie and the Banshees song that was written in 1985, repurposed by the obscure Maryland rock band The Everlove for the 2012 Activision video game “Transformers: Fall of Cybertron.”
The song is vaguely about the destruction of Pompeii, with a menacing refrain – “O, your city lies in dust” – befitting a trailer that’s all about everyone vowing death and ruin upon everyone else.
