HBO’s The Last of Us is wielding popular music to perplex us, to tie episodes together, and to make us cry. But series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are also deploying songs to subtly connect the show to the Naughty Dog game.
In episode 4, Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are travelling in Bill’s (Nick Offerman’s) car to Kansas City. Before Ellie gleefully finds a porn magazine in the back seat, she discovers a cassette of a Hank Williams compilation, The Original Singles Collection, collating many of the American country singer-songwriter’s singles from the ’40s and ’50s.
“This make you all nostalgic?” asks Ellie.
“This is actually before my time,” Joel retorts, aware Ellie is calling him old. “It’s a winner though.”
Joel pops the tape into the player and receives the last song Bill listened to in his truck, Williams’ 1955 song “Alone and Forsaken.” (Imagining Bill careening around town in his beloved vehicle, getting fresh supplies blasting this doom-fuelled song brings a new tear to my eye.)
In the game, Ellie and Joel listen to the same cassette(Opens in a new window) (and have the very same exchange) on their road trip to Pittsburgh (the show changed the location to Kansas City(Opens in a new window)), but start with another of Williams’ songs, fittingly, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” When Ellie falls asleep, as she does in the show too, she wakes up to Joel listening to Williams’ “Alone and Forsaken.”
“Alone and Forsaken” is a forlorn heartbreak song by Williams, but it works for The Last of Us as a despondent anthem of melancholia and gloom. Quite fitting for a post-apocalyptic America in 2023, Williams’ 1955 tune seems tailor made for it. Here’s a snippet of the lyrics:
The roses have faded, there’s frost at my door / The birds in the morning don’t sing anymore / The grass in the valley is starting to die / And out in the darkness the whippoorwills cry / Alone and forsaken by fate and by man / Oh Lord, if you hear me, please hold to my hand / Oh, please understand.
The HBO series’ fourth episode even takes its title, “Please Hold My Hand,” from these lyrics. In another nice reference, the name of this chapter in the game is “Alone and Forsaken.”
The Last of Us has already featured several music moments that have defined the series, from Bill and Frank’s connection to Linda Ronstadt’s moving ballad “Long Long Time,” to the use of Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” as a code.
