Series co-creator Craig Mazin recalled in an interview with IndieWire that he searched far and wide for the right song to encapsulate a theme of “commitment.”
“It was important for me to show that the romance, however long it lasted, it didn’t last. And then it’s arguing. And then it’s bargaining. And then it’s realizing what the other person does for you…The whole idea was to hit the highlights of moments in your life where love means something different,” he
said.It wouldn’t be until Mazin reached out to a friend with an “encyclopedic knowledge of all music” that he would stumble upon Ronstadt’s song, which had fallen into obscurity.
Clearly, Mazin made the right choice. Immediately after the episode aired on Jan 29, viewers were hailing it as “one of the greatest episodes of TV ever made.”
Music streaming service Spotify also reported that “Long, Long Time” received a 4900% increase in plays compared to the previous week. The chart-topping phenomenon resembles that of Kate Bush’s 80s pop hit “Running Up That Hill,” which saw a huge spike in plays after it was used in a pivotal episode of Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”
During its original release, “Long, Long Time” spent 12 weeks on Billboard’s top 100 list and earned Ronstadt a Grammy nomination for “Best Contemporary Female Vocal Performance.” Sadly, due to a 2013 diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare neurological condition similar to Parkinson's disease, the rock icon hasn’t sung her legendary ballad, or any of her great songs, in over a decade.
Though Ronstadt has yet to comment on the use of her song in “The Last Of Us,” the singer did post an older clip of a live performance onto her Instagram soon after the episode aired, along with the caption, "I think I'm going to love you for a long long time.”
We might never hear Ronstadt sing again, but her music is being honored in beautiful ways. Her song’s comeback through the show (which let’s not forget is an adaptation of a video game) is a perfect example of how great art has a way of finding new life time and time again.
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