NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, April 3, 2015, 6:01 AM
AMC/Ron Jaffe/AMC
“Mad Men” has been the story of Don Draper – and an integral part of telling his story has been through music.
Some of the most important moments in Don’s life have been scored to ’60s-era pop songs, charting his personal journey on the show. With the series taking place over the course of a single decade, the songs also illustrate that “the times they are a-changin’.”
Here’s a look back at the iconic character’s most memorable musical moments, in chronological order.
Don returns to an empty home as Bob Dylan sings “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”
(“The Wheel,” Season 1, Episode 13)
Don is forced to confront that the perfect family life he described in his masterful pitch to Kodak does not fit reality, as he is stricken to come home and realize that Betty and the kids have already departed for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Dylan’s portrait of a fractured relationship not only closes out the show’s first season on a melancholy note, but also foreshadows the eventual demise of Don and Betty’s marriage.
Fun fact: Even though the season finale takes place in 1960, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” wasn’t released until 1963.
Creator Matthew Weiner explained that the anachronism was on purpose due to the fact he wasn’t sure if the show would be renewed for a second season.
“I didn’t know if the show would be picked up,” he told the New York Times in 2009. “I was saying: ‘Here’s this song. This is what’s coming.’”
Megan serenades Don with “Zou Bisou Bisou”
(“A Little Kiss,” Season 5, Episode 1)
Megan’s birthday serenade is the moment Don realizes that life with the second Mrs. Draper will be very different from the first – for better and for worse.
Megan’s sexy performance of the French pop song wows the party’s guests, which Don watches with a mix of affection and embarrassment, not used to having his private life on display in such provocative fashion.
Fun fact: Jessica Paré is a Montreal native, and her cover of “Zou Bisou Bisou” cracked the Canadian Hot 100 for one week in 2012, coming in at…No. 100.
Don rejects the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”
(“Lady Lazarus,” Season 5, Episode 8)
The psychedelic Lennon-McCartney tune plays over the episode’s closing montage – at least until an unimpressed Don turns it off midway through.
The character’s distaste for the “Revolver” track reflected not only how the character felt out of step with 1960s youth culture, but also increasingly distant from his young wife, a feeling that would only magnify as the series progressed.
Fun fact: This episode was reportedly the first time an actual Beatles recording was used on a television series, with the series’ studio Lionsgate paying $ 250,000 to license the track.
Don shows his kids his childhood home as Judy Collins sings “Both Sides Now”
(“In Care Of,” Season 6, Episode 13)
With his career and personal life in shambles at season’s end, Don decides to take his children the dilapidated brothel where he was raised.
“It’s love’s illusions I recall / I really don’t know love at all,” Collins sings in her cover of the Joni Mitchell classic, encapsulating how Don’s shame about his past had kept him at a distance from those he loved most.
After spending his whole life trying to hide his Dick Whitman beginnings, Don revealing this aspect of himself to his children signaled that he was finally ready to let go of the past and live his life in a more open and honest manner.
Fun fact: Besides Collins, whose version won a 1968 Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance, “Both Sides Now” has been covered by a diverse number of artists including Bing Crosby, Dolly Parton, Leonard Nimoy and Frank Sinatra.
Don and Peggy slow dance to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”
(“The Strategy, Season 7, Episode 6)
Don and Peggy’s relationship has been by turns adversarial and intimate, with their platonic bond threatened by his downward spiral and his often disrespectful treatment of his protege, especially in the latter half of the series.
After a conversation in which they shared their regrets about the past and anxieties about the future, the two reconcile in moving fashion, capped off with a tender slow dance. The song reflects that despite the mistakes they’ve made, Don and Peggy did it their way.
Fun fact: Weiner chose to have the characters dance to the song to show that despite the late 60s reputation as being the “golden age of rock n roll,” the Sinatra tune “had a very large cultural impact” on kids and adults alike.
“Even at the time, people thought it was big and schmaltzy, but they did not stop listening to it,” he told Hitfix’s Alan Sepinwall. “And there is something eternal to the message of it.”
View Gallery The evolution of ‘Mad Men’ style
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