Words by Christopher Connor

Two years ago Normal People proved to be quite the sensation during the first UK Lockdown, as audiences engaged with the love story of Marianne and Connell and entered the breathtaking world of Sally Rooney’s novel. The music played an integral part in the series’ success both through the score from Stephen Rennicks and a wide-ranging mix of pop music used in the series. The series featured everything from Nick Drake to SOAK and London Grammar, embracing a wide range of genres from Folk and House to Indie mixed in with Only You by Yazoo and a host of deeper cuts from Ireland, where the series takes place. 

Juliet Martin who acted as one of the Music Supervisors on Normal People has returned for the latest Sally Rooney adaptation also from Hulu/BBC in the form of Conversations With Friends. Conversations With Friends sees Juliet reunited with director Lenny Abrahamson and his long-term collaborator Rennicks. The series focuses on Frances and Bobbi, two students at Trinity College in Dublin and ex-lovers who meet older writer Melissa and her husband Nick. Frances and Nick begin a relationship that threatens to destabilise her friendship with Bobbi. 

Juliet sat down with Composer Magazine to discuss her role in shaping the musical sound of both Sally Rooney adaptations, her own musical background and how she became a Music Supervisor. Juliet also discussed the role music plays in Sally Rooney’s novels and the challenges of translating this to the screen. 

Hi Juliet, massive congratulations on the series

Thank you. It's strange for it to be out in the world.

In terms of your background and early career, what made you want to become a music supervisor?

I love both film and music.  I worked in the industry after I left college, working in a record label, and an independent publishing label management company in Dublin. So I had that business experience from early on, and I then noticed that there wasn't anybody in Ireland acting as a music supervisor and that if the productions wanted to go and access that service, they were having to go to the UK. I saw it as an opportunity to show people that's what I could do because I had the background and understood the process. I was lucky to establish a really good working relationship with Element Pictures who've made both the Sally Rooney adaptations and The Favourite.  So it developed from there. 

Moving onto Conversations With Friends, did you find it difficult separating the sound from Normal People?

A bit for sure, some of my early playlists definitely felt like an extension of Normal People. Maybe a little bit more on the surface,  Normal People was a little bit more singer-songwriter, and a little bit more folk driven. I was leaning on that towards the beginning. This series obviously has a love story element but it is very different in nature. The world feels similar but the story is different. 

With our opening queue, we had something in there that was a different track and that was probably more in line with the Normal People world. So we had to make sure we got ourselves into the Conversations With Friends world. So yeah, I would say so but then, the picture starts to talk to you and you kind of then realise that what works isn't necessarily what worked on Normal People.

One of my favourite moments was the use of More Than This needle, which finishes episode eight.  I thought that mirrored nicely with Only You from Normal People as well.

That’s a great moment for sure. Billy Martin, who was on the Normal People soundtrack, did a lovely cover of that. That was probably me bringing my Normal People world into it. Ultimately we went with the original by Roxy Music which works really well. 

Music is such an intrinsic part of Sally’s novels. Did you enjoy playing around with the music she mentioned in her books?

She does reference music a lot in her novels. I think with Normal People we had one licensed track that we wanted to use, but we didn't end up using it.  She's amazing at choosing music that sets up her characters, but ultimately, you have to go with what you think works for the scene. So I don't think any of the references ended up making it in there in the end. She certainly uses music so effectively to set up a sense of time and place. I sadly didn’t get to chat to her about music.  She may have done playlists for the characters early on but we weren’t involved in those. 

How do you feel the characters in the two shows differ from each other? Did you have a challenge reflecting the character differences? 

If you think of the opening, of Episode Two, you've got the Kosher track. I think that was quite a nice one in sort of defining the girl's world. Then we've got some Irish artists like Gemma Dunleavy and Milo. There is, dare I say a contemporary, kind of Irish kind of rap acts that may set up the girl's world. We had a chat about making the world of Melissa and Nick a little bit different to that. Lenny our director mentioned Fleet Foxes and a folkier sound similar to that to help differentiate the a little bit. 

That was probably the extent to which we said, okay, well, let's make this about this character, and not about that character. Other than that it’s scene driven, what works in this scene? Sometimes you're trying different things and you're not saying, right, we're going to make the tone this for this or that for that, but you know, you end up sort of finding what works through just playing with and putting music to picture

Phoebe Bridgers did some music for the show. How did that come to be? 

Hulu asked her to want to be involved and she was a massive Sally Rooney fan. We were delighted! She got to watch some of the episodes and she responded to those really, she just seemed at ease without any direction from us. She said, right, I watched the series, I love it and I'd love to write something for it. I have some ideas already, and she sent us a demo about two months later.  It was really pretty much how that Sidelines track is now. It was from our point of view, a really seamless process.

I think Lenny knew where it would go and when we got the track. We knew already we had a montage scene with Bobbi and Frances and the editor put it to a picture and it worked amazingly. Lyrically, that kind of defines Frances so it really seems to work perfectly. Then we have another track of hers closing out episode 11, which is just gorgeous.  People seem to be responding to that as well. She has a vibe that really suits the series. She writes about dysfunction and pain which seems a good fit for Sally Rooney. 

Had you read the novels before working on both of the series?

I'd read both of them. I kind of devoured them actually, I read Conversations With Friends first. I loved it. Even before I got either job, I was busy making playlists because it's so great to do that. Even if I’m not working on something. If I'm reading a book or even thinking I might get the job. I love to just put a playlist together.

Do you know if there are plans for a third series based on her most recent book?

I expect not at the moment. I know that there was an advance plan for Normal People series 2, but with this one there are certainly no plans for more that I’m aware of. It’s great to be given the chance to bring Sally Rooney's writing to life. 

Moving away from Sally Rooney. How do you think music supervisors stay ahead of the curve? 

Well, I can speak from my point of view. There's so much new music coming out. I try and stay on top of that, to the extent that I can. I'm constantly listening to a lot of music, through blogs, and recommendations from people. Other than that you’re a servant to the picture, you’ve got to go along and see what works for the scene. I think trying to do anything inevitable for the sake of just doing it is not how I would approach it. 

Are there any artists you wish you'd been able to use in either of the series? 

I really wanted to use Caroline Polacheck, The Door which I started pursuing. It was maybe lyrically, too on the nose, I wanted to use it early on in the series. The lyrics speak to somebody going off and doing something. So Frances is on her way to meet Nick, but I love that song.  She's a great artist, and then on Normal People, Maggie Phillips and I who I co-supervised, we both wanted to use a Judee Sill track called Kiss that we actually pitched for the closing titles of episode one, and for the closing of 12. It's the most beautiful song but we just didn't quite find a place for it. There are always tracks you wish you’d been able to use and you just have to run with them. There are lots of different songs that do different things that work brilliantly. So it's about trying to decide what the scene wants to say in the context of the story.

There's such an eclectic mix of genres in both shows anyway and you’ve managed to balance some well-known tracks like the two 80s songs and some deeper cuts. 

There’s always that fine line of if you're using tracks that people know really well, you don't want to take people out of the scene.  If it’s this super well-known track, people may already have an association with it. It’s my job to try and use it in a way that's meaningful for the show, but that isn't going to detract people from what's going on.  If it's been used loads on a show on a different show then you don't want them to be drawn to another show while they're watching Conversations With Friends. So that's definitely a consideration.  They're both very real shows, they're trying to capture real-life experiences and relationships and things that people can relate to. So we're not going for this hyper-stylised Euphoria world or something like The End Of The F***ing  World.  

Is there anything you’re able to tell us about anything else you've got lined up next?

I am just finishing up on a feature film that's just been accepted to Cannes, for the directors' fortnight which is an amazing film, supported by A24. It’s a psychological drama directed by two amazing, US directors and I'm really proud of the film. It's not got loads of source music, but it's got a fantastic score and a couple of really great Irish tracks and a lot of on-screen performances. Paul Mescal sings a song in it.  I'm really looking forward to people getting to see that one.

Can you tell us anything about Silverstream and how that came about?

Well, I suppose that was when I was working in the music industry, I went away to England for a few years. I came back and saw that nobody was offering the sort of service that they could get in the UK, so a composer asked me to represent them.  I said, okay, I'm going to provide a service to Film & TV and I set up Silverstream. I now have somebody who works with me as well, to try and bridge that gap, to represent composers providing music services to the media, and also offer publishing. So it’s got a kind of full complimentary service. They also do some work for advertising as well. We work with some beautiful composers and it can be nice when you might supervise and then work closely with the composer as well. So there's a nice sort of good working relationship there that can help a production.