What Is Music's 'Word' for Death?

Composers use musical references to classics in their own work to help create mood -- and as a wink at other music lovers. Learn how one such reference, 'Dies Irae', or 'The Day of Wrath', is often used in film soundtracks in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren Vogel, Bam here, you've heard it during Star Wars,
The Shining even Home alone. For decades, clever composers have
woven elements of a particular medieval dirge into film soundtracks
to convey a sense of dread and general doom where
the script calls for it no widely as the Day

(00:23):
of Wrath. The original Latin title for this piece is
ds Era, which can also translate to such sunny concepts
as Judgment Day, the end of the world, and death
in general. The piece features a mere handful of notes.
Here's the basic tune. It was originally composed back in

(00:47):
the thirteenth century by a Franciscan monk named Thomas of Solano.
Little did he know that one day his piece would
be revered, repurposed, and otherwise showcased in many of the
biggest films to hit Hollywood. Hardly what we would call
a complex musical work by today's standards, the piece doubles
as a requiem chant and features some pretty sobering Latin

(01:07):
lyrics translated into English. The first two lines read day
of Wrath, the Day that will dissolve the world into
burning coals. Here's a sample. Yes Yes, Mozart and Verity

(01:34):
are just two of the composers who wrote original requiems
based on ds era. The hymn's first big movie exposure
was in Citizen Kane, but the musical motif once you
Know what to look For is ubiquitous. It's prominently featured
in the opening strains of The Shining and a variation

(02:03):
on it is included in the ultra famous Jaws theme.
Very appropriately, we might add the shark is death and
doom manifested. It's in Star Wars when Luke Skywalker faces
the loss of his aunt and uncle, and it's used

(02:31):
throughout the Lord of the Ring series to build a
sense of foreboding. Occasionally, composers go with a winking approach
when incorporating the dirge into a soundtrack. In the stop
motion animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas, an entire song

(02:52):
Making Christmas is based around the sequence. In Making, and
in the nineties blockbuster hit Home Alone, our young hero
Kevin is regaled with the urban legend of old Man Marley,
the rumored South Bend shovel slayer. When Kevin lays his
Eyes on the Guy, composer John Williams cues up a

(03:15):
well placed strain of ds eerie to get the point
across Kevin is terrified and his imagination is running away
with him. But ds erae isn't only effective in films.
The University of Georgia, for example, uses it to intimidate
their opponents into accepting the impending doom that the song implies.

(03:37):
It's a staple at u g A football games and
is frequently played for the crowd by the Georgia Redcoat
Marching Band m. Today's episode was written by Elia Hoyt

(04:10):
and produced by Tyler Clang, with musical cues provided by
David W. Collins. For more from David, including a full
and may I say fabulous episode about ds era as
popular music's word for death, check out his podcast The
Soundtrack Show, available wherever you get your podcasts, and of course,
for lots more on this and other topics that spell doom,
visit our home planet how Stuff Works dot com