Top TV Song Last Week: Heaven I Know by Gordi

AMC’s The Walking Dead opened and closed a recent episode with a haunting song from breakout Australian singer/songwriter Gordi. Underscoring the defeat and potential for an uprising, the track quickly claimed the top spot on Tunefind’s most popular TV songs chart for the past week.

 

 

With two prominent placements within the episode, Music supervisor Henry van Roden of Full Pursuit Media shared, “It was important to find something that could work lyrically and emotionally for both bookends of the episode. We (Full Pursuit) are big Gordi fans and this seemed like a perfect place for ‘Heaven I Know’.”

Before a single character utters a single word, the opening montage shows highlights of the post-apocalyptic survivors, or the Coalition. They’re going through their usual evening routines in Alexandria and Hilltop, lost, lonely and run-down from various struggles. Season 10 has been amping up to a confrontation between the Coalition and The Whisperers–the humans who wear zombie skin. With the repetitive whisper of chanting numbers the audience is lead into the episode with soft lyrics and emotive music that is soon replaced by distant screaming.

“They’re in a more hopeless place in the teaser than they may find themselves in by the end of the episode,” continues van Roden. “By the time we get there, the lyrics seem more bittersweet than before, until we fade in on the ‘Silence The Whispers’ graffiti. The consistent whispering throughout the song ‘123-123-123-123-12′ acted as a helpful but potentially unsettling reminder that the constant threat of the Whisperers is still in the back of everyone’s minds.”

Gordi retweeted an article from Decider and The Music about her song feature on The Walking Dead. Gordi told The Music, “It’s pretty wild to see a song I wrote while driving my second hand Subaru now being used on a show like The Walking Dead.”

The 2017 release from Australian Sophia Payten, known professionally as Gordi, sends a message about dealing with loss and accepting moving on. From the folktronica singer/songwriter’s debut album, Reservoir, Gordi blends moody songwriting with electronic soft horns. Gordi began writing her debut EP while still in college studying medicine in Sydney. She released numerous singles and was signed with American label Jagjaguwar near the end of 2015.

Gordi released her EP Clever Disguise in the U.S. in 2016. She toured sold out shows around Australia, U.S. and the U.K. with Bon Iver, Of Monsters And Men, and many other well-known artists. In 2018, Gordi released a collaboration on Troye Sivan’s debut album, Bloom, and in the same year joined Sam Smith on his sold out Australia and New Zealand tour.

 

More

〉Listen now: Heaven I Know by Gordi

〉More music by Gordi

〉Full list of songs featured in the The Walking Dead soundtrack

〉Popular songs on Tunefind