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The Walking Dead season 7: The Cell's Easy Street pop song is pure torture

Just when we thought we'd seen it all, here's a new form of cruelty TWD-style - the pop song as torture. And the man who wrote it couldn't be happier.

Karl Quinn

It's one of the perkiest pop songs you'll ever hear but the chances of Easy Street racing up the charts have probably been killed off by The Walking Dead.

The song by the Collapsable Hearts Club, which features heavily in this week's episode, is a sprightly slice of sunny optimism, written and produced by LA-based Jim Bianco, with Petra Haden – the sister-in-law of Jack Black – on vocals.

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Trailer: The Walking Dead season 7: The Cell

Daryl is taken by Negan to the Sanctuary, home of the Saviors. Meanwhile, Dwight is sent on a mission to bring back a runaway member of his group.

"It's our moment in the sun, and it's only just begun," Haden sings as a jaunty horn section plays above an energetic banjo line.

It's an earworm of a song – especially when it's played over and over and over, as it is to Daryl (Norman Reedus) as he lays hungry, battered and sleep-deprived in a Saviours prison cell.

Please make it stop: Daryl (Norman Reedus) is tortured like never before by Dwight (Austin Amelio).

Please make it stop: Daryl (Norman Reedus) is tortured like never before by Dwight (Austin Amelio). Photo: AMC

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It's a scene straight from the Guantanamo playbook, as Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) attempts to force Daryl to do as everyone else under his command does – kneel before their master and submit to his will.

Over and over the song plays, but Daryl's will remains steadfast. Finally, though, he breaks. But it isn't Easy Street that does it – it's Roy Orbison's Crying, coupled with a Polaroid image of the bloody patch of dirt that used to be Glenn.

One other song features prominently in this week's episode, The Cell (which comes after last week's, The Well – perhaps next week we'll get The Hell). It is The Jam's 1982 single A Town Called Malice, a song about the desperate hopelessness of life in England's poorest cities.

Better stop dreaming of the quiet life
Cause it's the one we'll never know
And quit running for that runaway bus
Cause those rosy days are few
And, stop apologising for the things you've never done,
Cause time is short and life is cruel
But it's up to us to change
This town called malice.

That sounds as good a description as any of life under Negan, and it plays over a montage of his slaves being brutalised, having their food stolen, and being fed to the walkers while his underlings bow and scrape as he passes.

Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) demands total obeisance from all his subjects, including Dwight.

Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) demands total obeisance from all his subjects, including Dwight. Photo: AMC

This week we learn that Dwight (Austin Amelio), whom we first met back in season six with two sisters, one of them a diabetic, had paid a heavy price for his survival. The other sister, Sherry (Christina Evangelista), was Dwight's wife – now, she is Negan's.

In a whispered exchange in a stairwell, he asks after her, "Is he good to you?"

"Yeah," she mumbles. "You happy?"

"Yeah. I did the right thing," he says, a reference to his having traded her to Negan so that she might live. "It's a hell of a lot better than being dead."

"Yeah."

For both of them, the exchange is unbearable. But it's nothing like the torture poor Daryl is forced to endure.

Petra Haden, singer of Easy Street, as she appears on the cover of her album Petra Goes to the Movies.

Petra Haden, singer of Easy Street, as she appears on the cover of her album Petra Goes to the Movies.

Fans of the show felt their pain threshold being similarly tested, and took to twitter to share their discomfort.

"Holy crap, I am HATING this easy street song and I am not even the one being tortured right now, poor Daryl," wrote one.

"This damn Easy Street song is driving me bat shit crazy," wrote another, though one suggested they would willingly listen to it on loop endlessly "if it meant Trump never becomes president".

The song's writer, Jim Bianco, told The Independent in the UK that he had no idea how the producers came across the song, which was written a few years ago but only made available via digital platforms last week. And when they first approached him about using it, he was perplexed.

"I didn't really understand why a show like The Walking Dead would want to use such an upbeat over-the-top, in your face 'happy' song," he said. "But now I understand – to torture someone, of course."

And what did he make of the reverse compliment of having his song deployed in that way?

"I think the show used it brilliantly," he said. "Framing such an upbeat song as a torture device is a work of genius by the music supervisor."

Karl Quinn is on facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on twitter @karlkwin

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