Top 10 Reuses of Murray Gold’s Music

Guest contributor Michael Conway highlights his 10 favourite reuses of music from the past couple of years.

Murray Gold has written an amazing amount of music for Doctor Who since the revival, but not even he can write entirely new music to accompany every minute of 13 episodes a year, so music is often reused. In this article I’ll be highlighting my 10 favourite reuses of music from the last couple of years, where an existing track gets a new lease of life by being used in a new or at least new(ish) context. Thus I won’t be including regular motifs like the Cybermen theme, and I’ve not included reworkings of existing music e.g. the variation of This is Gallifrey that became To Save the Doctor, as they are generally different enough to count as a new pieces of music.

My ranking isn’t just about the quality of the track, but also whether it worked in the context of the scene, and how the new use compared with the original use, as demonstrated by Number 10.

10. Four Knocks (in The Time of the Doctor)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrRWVu-S4KU

A lovely piece, and it cleverly echoes the Knock Knock comments in this lovely scene of the old Eleven and Clara pulling a cracker, but the original use of this music between Ten and Wilf is so iconic, it’s a difficult piece to use again without thinking of it.

9. The Terrible Truth (in Into the Dalek)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAl4lF5UHYg

Nothing will beat this wonderful piece’s original use (from Asylum of the Daleks, when Oswin discovers the ‘terrible truth’ that she is now a Dalek, but it was nice to hear it again in a non-Clara context, as the ‘good’ Dalek goes on the rampage to destroy the other Daleks.

8. Interrogation (in The Snowmen)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y3TxXjdgVk

A track from the rather unloved The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe, which to me came into its own in the following year’s Christmas episode, the wonderful The Snowmen. Indeed it fits the scene perfectly, as the loud brassy bit accompanies The Great Intelligence taking over Simeon’s body and freezing the Doctor’s face, while the mournful slow section accompanies the parallel scene of the dying Clara asking Captain Latimer to hold his children, before shedding a tear…

7. Pain Everlasting (in Death in Heaven)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qpWiP2yXDY

This haunting piece from The Name of the Doctor was used in Death in Heaven for the painful scene where the Doctor enters the coordinates that Missy gave him, but Gallifrey wasn’t there, and we see his desperation…

6. Beginning of the End (in Death in Heaven)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1VEXt3vDTs

A sad variation of Clara’s theme, originally used in The Time of the Doctor (Clara’s gran telling the story of how she met her husband), but to me more memorably used firstly at the end of Deep Breath when Clara accepts (and hugs) the new Doctor and at the end of Death in Heaven, for the very sad scene when the Doctor and Clara say goodbye to each other…Never trust a hug. It’s just a way to hide your face…

5. The Wedding of River Song (in The Name of the Doctor)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOTgKA1CV74

To me this lovely piece (the definitive version of River’s theme) got slightly lost in its own episode, where a lot was going on (and most of it weird!), and its best use was in River’s farewell to the Doctor in The Name of the Doctor, where it really suited the mood of what was a pretty emotional episode.

4. Song for Four/ Home (in Deep Breath)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn0rGqTo2zY

And now a cheat! This track should have been used for the amazing scene at the end of The Day of The Doctor when Tom Baker appeared as The Curator, but instead they used The Wedding of River Song! Happily, when the piece finally emerged, it was for a scene which (to me) suited it far better, the phone call from Eleven to Clara at the end of Deep Breath that tugged at our hearts…

3. You’re Fired (in The Crimson Horror)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulz0agt1Cdo

A rare ‘actiony’ piece of music in my Top 10! This epic combination of the Series 4 Doctor’s Theme and a turbocharged variation of I am the Doctor was rather wasted in a slightly underwhelming scene in The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe where Madge drives the Androzani Harvester. Happily it was reused throughout Series 7 so it wasn’t wasted; I could have picked out several scenes, but chose the “Attack of the Supermodels” scene from The Crimson Horror! Honourable mention also to Flying Home for Christmas, yet another piece from The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe, its opening section used nicely in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, notably when the Doctor hugs Clara on the cliff after realising that she isn’t a trap…

2. Infinite Potential (in The Time of the Doctor)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJqnGpkaqrM

Not number one I hear you cry! I love the music, I love the scene, I love the speech. It’s just that to me Matt’s regeneration deserved its own music, and this music still partially belongs to Clara’s “Most Important Leaf in History” speech in The Rings of Akhaten, especially as that was only a few months earlier.

1. 1969 (in The Night of the Doctor)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL33g_5nM9g

My Number 1 choice! The Night of the Doctor was a lovely surprise when it emerged out of nowhere. As a hush hush, low budget affair, understandably all of its music was reused, 1969 being the key piece used for Eight’s actual regeneration. 1969 originally accompanied the stunning scene near the start of The Impossible Astronaut where the Doctor is shot at Lake Silencio, but unfortunately not much of it was actually used, whereas in The Night of the Doctor this piece is showcased much better as Eight’s haunting regeneration music, and now belongs to Paul McGann in my mind. Physician, heal thyself…

The rest of the music was really well chosen too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U3jrS-uhuo

I hope you enjoyed my choices, entirely my personal preference! I restricted it to the last two years, but throughout the last decade music has been cleverly reused, and I would be interested to hear about any of your personal favourite reuses of music. Murray’s soundtrack albums are well worth buying; I’m building up my collection at the moment and look forward to buying the soundtrack album for Series 8 & Last Christmas!