Orange Opening Song

[Tamela]

It's Regina Spektor's infectious theme song for the Netflix runaway hit series Orange is the New Black, and chances are you can't stop singing it. BuzzFeed spoke with Spektor about how she came up with what has to be the catchiest song about prison in quite a while.

Regina Spektor: There wasn't anything given to me. Jenji [Kohan, the show's creator] is really cool and she knows my music. She understands that I'm not a "this is the direction that we want" kind of a writer. While they were still casting the show, we had a great meeting in person in New York and she told me what the show was about and her feelings about it and some of the stories from the episode, almost the way you would tell your friend what happened in the show. She said, "It would be great if you could write an opening song for it," and that was about it. I said, "This sounds really amazing, I'll try."

RS: She told me about the premise, she told me about Piper, she told me about the book. She told me what happened to her. She told me some of the story that happened. I don't want to give anything away for people who are watching, but she told me the chicken story. She told me little stories of what they're going through so I could get the feeling of what kind of environment they're in, what they're dealing with.

RS: It was mostly just that and thinking about the idea of what it must be like to be in prison and the different states of mind. One of the things she told me when we had lunch that first time was that it might be really cool to use ideas that obviously come to your mind if you're thinking of somebody in prison. It wasn't anything super duper out of the ordinary.

RS: I'm up to episode nine. I watched up to episode seven, but in the rougher states. I was waiting for my husband to catch up so we could watch it together. We watched episode eight like two days before going on tour and we watched episode nine in the airport. And then we were like, "Oh shit, we don't have Netflix in Europe," so we're stuck at episode nine. We're gonna have to finish it when we come back in September! Now I have to be really careful whenever I'm being asked about it. I have to say, "Don't tell me anything!"

RS: On American tours, there's satellite TV and everyone is watching movies, but on the British tour there's not really any working media. There's no Wi-Fi, it's kind of a little bit ancient. We've just been hanging out, it's really cool. The band and the crew just kind of hangs out on the bus and has snacks and drinks. Old-school socializing! It's really fun.

RS: Yeah. We perform a song together that we wrote together and he has his own band and he opens the show with his band Only Son. It's really fun. We get to run around Europe and hang out and keep our minds off the ending of the show.

RS: Right now I'm doing road things. I'm really excited to play these shows and we're going to a lot of new places that I've never played before. I've never played in Prague; I've never played in Budapest. It's really exciting! Oh and then I think we're gonna go back and I'm definitely going to write more music. It's hard to tell. When you're on the tour bus all you can really think about is the next show.

"You've Got Time" is the main title theme song for the Netflix Original Series Orange Is the New Black, written, composed and performed by Regina Spektor . The song was nominated in the Best Song Written for Visual Media category at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.

The song has been well received. Casey Cipriani of Indiewire wrote that the song's lyrics suggesting animals trapped in a cage was ideal for Orange Is the New Black. Garin Pirnia of Rolling Stone noted that after the song begins with Spektor's "aggressive" guitar playing, "'You've Got Time' softens during the bridge, though, generating an aura of hope. When Spektor sings the title refrain, it works literally for the prison motif but also alludes to the show's themes of redemption and forgiveness."

In the opening video to Orange Is The New Black we see up to 77 different faces. Many of them seem to be the faces of characters we already know from the series, but actually they are of real prisoners. One face is even of a very special person - the writer of the novel Orange Is The New Black: My Year In A Women's Prison on which the series is based, Piper Kerman.[1] A special edition of the song was created for the series' finale.

According to Orange Is The New Black creator Jenji Kohan, the show's protagonist Piper Chapman (inspired by the real-life writer and ex-convict Piper Kerman) was 'a Trojan Horse' to explore other 'fascinating tales of black women, and Latina women, and old women and criminals'. This makes sense as the seasons pick up on Piper's imprisonment and go on to weave intricated backstories and character arcs for several other inmates who come from different walks of life.

The show's opening credits exemplify its diverse nature as it features close-up shots of women inmates from all races and backgrounds, as Regina Spektor's You've Got Time plays over these photographs. The montage of smiles, stares, and frowns, perfectly captures the varying moods of the Litchfield inmates.

To add a sense of authenticity to the show's tones, Kohan featured non-actors to pose for the credits. All of these formerly-incarcerated women were asked to think about three things to channel the perfect expressions that made it to the final cut.

'Think of a peaceful place, think of a person who makes you laugh, and think of something that you want to forget.' These were the three things that were asked to the women by director Thomas Cobb (whose company designed the opening sequence).

Regina Spektor's song You've Got Time (that was written exclusively for the series) starts off with a haunting atmosphere metaphorically equating the prisoners to caged animals. But as the song progresses towards its bridge, a ray of hope shines. For a moment, the song starts sounding optimistic. This might unintentionally be a reference to the fate of its characters. While not every lead character could attain freedom, others found a new purpose in life.

To conclude the show's final season in 2019, an orchestral version of You've Got Time was used, that yet again relied on Regina Spektor's vocals while featuring a full-fledged instrumental ensemble. The cello and the violin doubled for the song's otherwise-iconic drums, adding a sonically intense atmosphere to the sound.

This new version was released before the finale as You've Got Time (chamber version). 'Over the years it was a privilege to see the Orange Family grow and expand and experiment. Making a new interpretation of the song felt like a fitting way to say goodbye.' Spektor said on her official website.

After serving a prison sentence of 13 months for felonious money-laundering, Kerman wrote her memoirOrange Is The New Black: My Year In A Woman's Prison and currently serves as a communication strategist for several non-profits. Even though Taylor Schilling's Piper Chapman is directly based on her, the character majorly deviates from Kerman's life as the show progresses.

The entire sequence was produced and directed by the Thomas Cobb Group, a company under the eponymous director. For the span of over one and a half minutes, the montage flits through closeup shots of 61 women.

Nine of these (including Piper Kerman) were photographed in New York by Michael Trim while Thomas Cobb captured the stills of 52 women in LA. In the latter case, the women were found via Homeboy Industries, a collective that helps in providing education and rehabilitation to ex-convicts and gang members.

Thomas Cobb Group has had a stellar history when it comes to designing opening credits for major network shows. This includes the post-9/11-themed montage in Homeland as well as the main title design on Fear The Walking Dead.

Orange Is The New Black turned out to be the agency's second collaboration with Jenji Kohan as they had also helmed the creation of the opening credits for Weeds, another comedy-drama created by Kohan.

Another unintentional instance of foreshadowing in Regina Spektor's song was the first verse itself. The song opens with the following lyrics, 'The animals, the animals. Trapped, trapped, trapped, till the cage is full. The cage is full Stay Awake.'

Even though Spektor clearly would have had no idea of where the show's storyline would head to, her lyrics still end up accurately predicting a major theme in Season 4. This season mainly dealt with the politics behind the privatization of prisons as Litchfield gets overcrowded with new inmates. The ill-management of this crowd gives the inmates more problems and sleepless nights.

Just like the Thomas Cobb Group, singer Regina Spektor had also collaborated with Jenji Kohan for Weeds. She had provided vocals for the show's opening songLittle Boxes, a reprise of Malvina Reynold's satirical song of the same name from the 1960s.

In fact, it's the original version that's used for the debut season. From then onwards, several musical guests have covered the song, including Spektor. One of her original songs, Don't Leave Me, was also used as the closing credits song on one of Season 8's episodes.

The record producer and multi-instrumentalist has worked with a wide range of artists including Linkin Park, Lil Peep, and Alanis Morissette. His most famous works include Iris by Goo Goo Dolls and Green Day's magnum opus Boulevard of Broken Dreams for which he won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 2005.

Every episode of Orange Is The New Black opens with the same montage as discussed above but viewers might have forgotten that the pilot was an exception to this rule. The first episode instead begins with a cold open that contrasts Piper's life before her prison sentence. She's shown to be sharing an intimate bath with her then-fiance Larry, followed by a jump-cut that transitions to a contrasting picture in a cramped prison washroom.

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