By: Emily White
If you watched the Season Premiere of Mad Men last night, you are most likely cooing “Zoobie Zoobie Zoo” to yourself this morning. Well, heads-up it’s “Zoo Bisou Bisou” and you can add it to your record collection soon.
In the two-hour Season 5 premiere, Meagan (Jessica Paré), the new wife of advertising stud Don Draper (Jon Hamm), put’s on quite a show at his 40th surprise birthday party. The young, liberated and slightly crazy Megan romps about with a suggestive performance of the French pop song ”Zoo Bisou Bisou.” Lionsgate Productions announced this morning that Paré’s version of the song, originally recorded in 1961 by British actress and pop star Gillian Hills, will be sold on iTunes and released on AMC’s web-site as a limited edition vinyl release.
The music placement in Mad Men is often subtle, sometimes critical. From something as simple as “I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)” underscoring Don smoking a cigarette on a street corner in Season 4, to “Manhattan” by Ella Fitzgerald capturing the essence of the time period and the city in Season 1. Though the show sometimes features music not of the period (like the show theme, “A Beautiful Mine” by RJD2 or “The Infanta” by the Decembrists in Season 2) it is typically as meticulous in it’s accuracy of song selection as it’s period-perfect wardrobe. Infact, when some early viewers of the Season 5 premiere pointed out to show creator Matt Weiner that the live band at Don’s party plays a Burt Bacharach’s 1967 song “The Look of Love” – released months after the party takes place in 1966 — Weiner had the song replaced. Weiner explained, “Although we take license for artistic purposes with the end-title music, we never want the source music to break from the time period we are trying to recreate.”
For more of the music used in the past 4 seasons, check out Rolling Stone’s ‘Ultimate Mad Men Playlist’ on Spotify and lists of all the music featured on the AMC Mad Men blog.
