The Music Supervisor of ‘1971’ Walks Us Through The Tough Decisions Of What Songs The New Apple TV+ Documentary Featured Versus Which They Had To Cut

In the Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever,” Mr. Spock theorizes that “time is fluid, like a river, with currents, eddies, backwash.” He adds that there are certain focal points, with ripple effects that will forever reverberate. The eight-part series 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything that recently debuted on Apple TV+ does a lot to substantiate our favorite Vulcan’s claims. And does so with a tidal wave of outstanding tunes.

From the team of Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Reese, who made the Academy Award-winning Amy Winehouse documentary Amy, and Danielle Peck, 1971 goes deep on artists like Marvin Gaye, John Lennon, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Elton John, Curtis Mayfield, Carole King, Alice Cooper, T. Rex, Ike and Tina Turner, Bob Marley, The Who, and the Rolling Stones. It also drops in some deep cuts from bands like Gong, Can, early Pink Floyd, Miles Davis’s fusion Jack Johnson project, Neu!, Weather Report, The Slickers, Compost (yeah, I never heard of them either), and some lesser-known Stevie Wonder.

Believe it or not, I’m leaving a lot of artists out. (And, as a testament to the year 1971, the series does so, too. Don’t look for “Stairway to Heaven” in this.) 

Each episode connects different bangers to what was happening in the culture at the time, be it the Attica Prison riots, the airing of An American Family on PBS, the Stanford Prison Experiment, the publication of Hunter S. Thompson’s mad ravings in Rolling Stone, Lt. William Calley’s trial following the discovery of the My Lai Massacre, or London’s hectic free speech demonstrations.

I had the good fortune to speak with Iain Cooke, Music Supervisor for the project. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. 

DECIDER: So what exactly does a music supervisor do?

IAIN COOKE: A music supervisor handles all musical elements of a production. This means reading a script and isolating musical moments, likes, say, someone singing in a bar. It means working with the cast on a musical performance, aligning them with vocal coaches or an instrumental boot camp. Then there’s the angle of helping to pick the songs. If you are working on a typical drama, you can have a blank slate; you have 11 million songs to choose from. Then, there is the licensing aspect, negotiating rights and getting the correct approvals. It’s one of the few positions on a project that starts at pre-production and continues all the way through to the sound mix. 

So a series like this, which is all about songs from such a wide spectrum, I would imagine it is a music supervisor’s dream come true.

Yes, but also plenty of sleepless nights!

This all started for me six years ago, at the Cannes premiere for the Amy Winehouse documentary Amy. James Gay-Reese told me he was in the process of securing the book this was based on (Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded). It might be a film, or maybe four films, then it emerged as eight 45-minute episodes each centered on a theme or pivotal artist. Then it was a two-year edit and finalizing the contracts right up until the end. 

There are dozens and dozens of great songs that get the spotlight in this show, some very famous, others are deep cuts. We’re just going to scratch the surface here, but let’s start with one I’ve loved since I was maybe 14, The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” which does not sound dated at all. 

That definitely is a good one to start with. It’s fascinating to watch the development of synthesizers. We have a little early Kraftwerk in that episode, too. Pete Townshend talks about how he was writing a screenplay at the time for something called Lifehouse, where people are plugged into something called “The Grid.” It’s sort of a dystopian world, and producers said it was far-fetched and no one wanted to touch it. But the more we hear him talk about it with 50 years of hindsight, it sounds like “Black Mirror.” I bet if he dug the script out now he could get some traction.

Anyway, when you see how they are playing against this synthesized backing track, you see how they were pioneers. 

It still sounds fresh even though the computers being used were the size of my living room. And you hardly notice that the rest, it’s really just three chords. Three repeated notes over and over, that’s basically it. But play it in the car, and it’s the greatest thing you’ve ever heard.

I have always wanted to use “Baba O’Reilly” in a film, I’m always looking for the perfect scene to re-use that. I’m not sure if it’s been in a film before. 

Spike Lee beat you to it, but it was long enough ago. 

The first album to get a thorough review in 1971 is Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece What’s Going On. It was recently named the best album of all time by Rolling Stone, and there’s no argument against that. You include “What’s Going On” and “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” and also, which I love, the second track, which wasn’t one of the singles, “What’s Happening Brother.” This is key because everyone knows the first track, but when you put the album on, you are surprised that it rolls directly into this next track. It’s “oh, wow, this whole first side is a suite!”

The album was inspired by Marvin Gaye being angry that his brother was in Vietnam. It’s a protest record. It’s such a political piece. I think it’s Jimmy Iovine who says in the documentary that it was something of a Trojan horse. The lyrics have a pointed message under the guise of this absolutely beautiful music. 

It’s so fitting this is in the first episode because here we are in 2021, it’s 50 years later, and everything has changed — but also nothing has changed. We’re all walking around with tiny computers in our hands, that’s the big difference. The line in “Inner City Blues” about “trigger happy policing/panic is spreading/God knows where we’re headed,” this as apt today as then. 

All of 1971 shows the symbiosis between music stars and politics; these were the most influential people in the world at the time. 

There’s a nice gift at the end of each episode, “Ball of Confusion” by the Temptations over the credits. Great song, and I bet a lot of people who know it don’t realize it’s the Temptations. They’re more known for “My Girl” or “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” than this weird, psychedelic funk with harmonicas and horns. How did you land on this in the closing credits?

I believe it was the producer Danielle Peck who first seized on the song. But it evolved. Originally it was in the opening credits, but we thought it was weird to have a band that isn’t highlighted elsewhere representing the whole project. In other incarnations we had a different song opening each episode before we landed on the montage of different tracks [which includes T. Rex, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield]. But the song has such energy, and lyrically it’s perfect, it’s a great way to lead you to the next episode. 

It’s such a great tune. I remember in the early 1990s the British band Love and Rockets did a cover, and, uh, yeah, sorry guys, you did your best. 

I was floored you included “George Jackson” by Bob Dylan. This was something of a hit at the time, but it’s kind’ve the lost Dylan tune. It was never on an album, he’s never performed it live. It fits in perfectly because one of the episode explores the Attica Prison Riots, and I think it’s emblematic of what Bob Dylan always did so well, which is to take current events and, just through his voice, make them sound like folk tales. I think it probably got people thinking about George Jackson’s death in a different light as a result.  

These artists really nailed their colors to the mast and took action. The series starts with Neil Young picking up the guitar and singing “Ohio” after the Kent State massacre, you’ve got Bob Dylan singing about George Jackson, Aretha Franklin standing side-by-side with Angela Davis, and offering to pay her bail.

So many of the artists talk about hearing clicks on the phone, and it’s revealed they were under surveillance. They were deliberately targeted as disruptors. It’s the power of songwriting to see these issues, pick up a guitar and write a song as powerful as “George Jackson.”

There’s a lot of John Lennon in the series, and you can’t ignore “Imagine,” either the song or the album. It’s a song I’ve heard 500,000 times so maybe it’s lost some of its urgency for me, and maybe for you, too. Did working on this recharge it for you?

It’s one of the beautiful things in this series that we dig into some big hits as well as deeper cuts and hidden gems. Watching John Lennon stand side-by-side with the defendants of the OZ Trial puts the work in perspective. Songs like “I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier Mama” are just mind-blowing. Lennon had the quote that music reflects the state that society is in, then we watch him record “Gimme Some Truth.” If ever there was a song for right now. Or six months ago.

“Imagine” with its lyrics of how life could be and should be, but is not, is still very powerful. But it’s funny, it’s a song my mother can’t listen to anymore, I guess it is connected to too many memories. 

I adore Exile on Main St., it’s my favorite Stones album, and the Stones are maybe my favorite straight-ahead rock band. Weirdly the best track on there, which you include, is “I Just Wanna See His Face.” But it’s so not a typical Stones song. It sounds like it was recorded in a swamp. 

That’s the joy of that whole Rolling Stones episode. With hindsight it is deemed a classic album. At the time it was considered “critic-proof,” it didn’t matter what people said. So much of the Stones post-Altamont signal how peace, love, and flowers are over, this is a new decade and things have to change. 

If I recall correctly, “I Just Want To See His Face” is shown in the series against the images of all the young counter-culture Christians. There’s a side story about new spirituality and Jesus Christ Superstar, which then had a bit of a backlash by some conservatives thinking it was anti-Christian.

Right, and “I Just Want To See His Face” is a gospel song — but recorded amid all this hedonism, by these drug-taking sinners. And it sounds like it was recorded with a pillow over the microphones!

There’s the whole bit about them retreating to the South of France and using a mobile truck to record. Today that would be fine, but back then less so. And tales of their lunches that went on for days, all the hangers-on. You’re watching 50 years on thinking “gee, I wouldn’t mind having a go in the South of France to see how long I could last with them.”

It’s such a yin-and-yang to Sly and the Family Stone recording There’s a Riot Goin’ On. A similar story of drug-fueled retreat, but not a party atmosphere at all, more like a mad scientist in the attic. I love the track “Spaced Cowboy,” which when you first hear it you think “what the hell is this?” But it really grows on you. 

It’s one of my all-time favorite albums. I remember a dear friend who was older than me passed it to me for my 16th birthday and it’s been a perennial classic. The series gets at how Sly Stone was a maverick genius, but troubled. It’s so fascinating, I could watch the footage of him creating that album forever. It was such a progressive way to make music, he was a real pioneer. 

When you get into these perfect albums it must have been tough to figure out what to leave out. Carole King’s Tapestry gets four songs and Joni Mitchell’s Blue gets three. But you could have picked any or all of them. 

It gets decided as the story takes shape, really. 

With Joni Mitchell, you have just brutal honesty. Writing from the heart. You hear other musicians say how they told her “hey, why are you doing that? Why are you putting yourself out there like that?” It changed songwriting, really.

Carole King, too, there are just so many great songs. “You’ve Got a Friend” and “It’s Too Late.” This episode is juxtaposed with the stories from An American Family, which has so much of the mother [Pat Loud]’s perspective, and the strength of that character. 1971 really was a time about women and other marginalized people. And this music really spoke to that.

I want to salute some of the deeper cuts. One tune I knew from the The Harder They Come album but didn’t know much about was “Johnny Too Bad” by the Slickers. Maybe it is because I am American, but I learned a lot about the subculture of white British youth gangs who actually were inspired by the West Indian community. 

That’s great, there are definitely pockets in there that people can go explore. I love how much we included Gil Scott-Heron. People may know “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” but then you hear something like “No Knock,” and it is so on the money for right now. He and the Last Poets representing the civil rights movement morphing into Black power, I really hope audiences discover more of that.

We’ve talked for a while and I think you can get a sense that I am a fan of the project, so let me come at you with one complaint.

Uh oh.

I know something like this is collaborative and you are not the sole author, but, wow, this series really disses Prog Rock. There’s like 11 seconds of Yes, with commentary that basically says “oh, this was so pretentious” and then dives right into T.Rex and Alice Cooper. Such a diss! A diss to Yes, a diss to Genesis, a diss to Jethro Tull and all of that. 

Well, if you were to ask who did we miss not putting in the series, I definitely would say Jethro Tull. If we had more episodes I am sure they would be in there. But we couldn’t do a deep dive into everything. 

Are you ready to go on the record, though, and say you, personally, like Yes?

Yes.

Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets about Phish and Star Trek at @JHoffman.

Watch 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything on Apple TV+