Buddy Holly's 'Everyday' Was The Original Good Omens Theme Song
This article contains spoilers for "Good Omens" season 2.
If you watched "Good Omens" season 2 when it debuted in July, chances are you've spent the last several weeks humming the same song as a few million other fans of the show. Buddy Holly's "Everyday" is the unofficial theme song of the fantasy comedy series' second season, and it's an earworm that's both impossible to shake and too fun to even want to.
"Everyday" first appeared in the sophomore season trailer, and seemed to be hinting towards some sort of countdown. "Every day/it's a-gettin' closer," Holly sings — but what's the "it" in question? The apocalypse? An answer to the question of Gabriel's sudden appearance on earth? A big old smooch between the demon Crowley (David Tennant) and the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen). The answer turned out to be two of the three, but within the show's story, the song's presence could be traced back to an unlikely love story between the archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) and hellish leader Beelzebub (Shelley Conn).
But it also turns out that co-author and series creator Neil Gaiman originally had plans to include the peppy song much earlier and more often. In fact, its inclusion in an adaptation of "Good Omens" was first suggested by his fellow co-author, Terry Pratchett, more than three decades ago.
Every day, it's a-gettin' closer (the Apocalypse, that is)
In the introduction to the official script book for the show's first season, "The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book," Gaiman explains that Holly's song was actually set to appear throughout season 1, and was even originally planned as the show's theme song. "In the scripts, Buddy Holly's song 'Every Day' runs through the whole like a thread," Gaiman writes. "It was something that Terry had suggested in 1991, and it was there in the edit." There were plans for various cover versions of "Everyday" across season 1 and its mentioned throughout the scripts, starting in the Garden of Eden scene in the pilot and ending at the epic airfield climax.
The script book includes cues for these proposed needle drops in great detail. In the first episode, after Crowley and Aziraphale discuss the ethics of their respective roles in the Garden of Eden, Gaiman writes that "Buddy Holly's song 'Everyday' plays, beginning with a tick tick tick and ... Every day it's a-getting closer."
In other episodes, the song is reimagined in a 1960s style, "Langley-School-music-project-style," as a lullaby and a choral rendition, and even with lute music like that of "a seventeenth-century folk piece or chorale." The description of the final version of "Everyday" is the most evocative, playing twice in the 5th episode as the airfield showdown begins in earnest. According to the scripts, the song first plays on Crowley's radio before once again popping up in the episode's last seconds:
"And over the credits, the pounding, crazy-ass, heavy metal Hell-chords transmute into a world-ending metal version of 'Everyday.'"
Kill your darlings (then resurrect them)
Of course, none of those versions of "Everyday" appeared in "Good Omens" season 1, even though they were actually recorded at the time. "Our composer, David Arnold, created several different versions of 'Everyday' to run over the end credits," Gaiman explains in the book's intro. "And then he sent us his 'Good Omens' theme, and it was the 'Good Omens' theme." The playful, dynamic musical piece that plays over the opening credits is a highlight of a fantastic series, and in season 1, it tends to be the music that episodes end on as well. Though one or two of the original "Everyday" cues were replaced with Queen songs, most of them were simply replaced with the credits.
Gaiman elaborates, "Peter Anderson made the most remarkable animated opening credits to the 'Good Omens' theme, and we realized that 'Everyday' didn't really make any sense any longer, and, reluctantly, let it go. It's here [in the scripts], though. You can hum it."
Fans don't have to just hum the song for themselves any more, though, as Gaiman was able to get Pratchett's idea into the show on his second try: it's all over "Good Omens" season 2. In the season finale, it's revealed that Gabriel performed a small miracle at a bar in Edinburgh where he and Beelzebub first fell in love, magically making the jukebox turn every record into the Buddy Holly track that Beelzebub likes so much.
Everyday made a pitch-perfect comeback
The "Everyday" backstory is a sweet gesture that makes for an even sweeter viewing experience, as it turns out apocalypse-wary fans were paying attention to the wrong part of the song all along. The original plan for the song was an ominous, tongue-in-cheek echo of the way each episode counts down the days to the end of the world. But in the rom-com-like second season it's not the "it's-a-gettin' closer" that we should worry about, but rather, the "love like yours" that will "surely come my way."
Love comes several couples' ways this season, but none more overtly than Aziraphale and Crowley themselves. It's too bad that not even an endlessly cheerful Buddy Holly song could save them from their angsty season-ending breakup. Maybe Gaiman has an even sweeter song in mind for the show's (hopeful) third season.
"Good Omens" seasons 1 and 2 are now available to stream on Prime Video. The show hasn't yet been renewed for a third season.