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The Massacre of the Innocence of Derry
- Norland Tellez, PhD
- Jan 11
- 7 min read
Stephen King’s IT (2017) - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Benjamin Wallfisch
Floating in
Floating into the soundtrack of IT, the 2017 film adaptation of Stephen King’s infamous novel, the central musical theme of the film turns around the titular character of It, an unspeakable “alien” entity of savage violence, very much tailored to the specifications of the Freudian Id. Its relentless “compulsion to repeat” (every 27 years) expresses the mimetic dynamism of death drive (todestrieb) that animates It. A creature that imitates your worst fear, It takes the shape-shifting form of “Pennywise the Dancing Clown,” who, like Kali dancing over the corpse of Shiva, dances over a pile of children’s corpses that have learned to float in the sewers of Derry. Understood in the widest sense of mystery, It embodies the sacrificial mystery of human violence itself in the cradle of infanticidal slaughter.
As the musical element points beyond words, through the medium of musical tones and auditory images, Benjamin Wallfisch gives expression to the agonies and ecstasies, the horror and beauty, of the film. The sound score will transport us from the soft and sentimental, the nostalgic and gentle, to the shrieking cacophony and pounding terror of infanticidal violence. So does the composer succeed in translating into music the unspeakable collective horror of that which is IT.
Departure from innocence
In the opening seconds of the soundtrack of IT, a nursery rhyme gives sound to an infanticidal undertow. The ghostly voice of a young girl sings this very special nursery rhyme, one which George Orwell also used in 1984.
“Oranges and Lemons” is indeed a remarkable lullaby which, as a whole, portrays a curious vignette of social and economic relations. With the desire “to grow rich,” the consequence of debt and repayment of “five farthings", the nursery rhyme ends in an explosion of murderous frenzy.
A singular voice of the ghostly child multiplies into the mournful echoes of many voices which can barely carry their mournful tune as far as the bells of St. Martin, finally expiring at the fatal debt of five farthings. The initial sequence of the film thus begins its gloomy descent into the dreary town of Derry.
The sound score will transport us from the soft and sentimental, the nostalgic and gentle, to the shrieking cacophony and pounding terror of infanticidal violence.
The lullaby
Establishing the basic plot of the musical journey, it is well worth having the entire iconic rhyme in mind. For already in its basic structure, this lullaby anticipates and executes a sign of collective murder—both the murder of the many by the one and of the one by the many:
Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St. Clement's.
You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's.
When will you pay me?
Say the bells at Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
Say the bells at Shoreditch.
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know,
Says the great bell at Bow.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead.
The archetype of child sacrifice
Even the small fragment of the lullaby which is used drags with it the entire mythic pattern which is to reverberate throughout the film. It creates an anticipatory build-up that generates tension and suspense, leading to a mind-boggling explosion of homicidal fury. From the underground of Derry, in the shadow of white-picked-fenced America, innocence belies the serial murder of children.
The lyrics of this lullaby, which introduce the musical score of It, are oddly familiar though distinctively British. They are also distinctively monetary, fiscal, and gilded, finally endowed with the brutality of capital punishment. The whole nursery rhyme couples an economic social relation of payment and debt, the desire to grow rich, with capital punishment and dismemberment.
Although the very last part of the rhyme, where the chopping begins, was a later addition, it elicits the primordial background of its mythic pattern: the archetype of ritual child sacrifice.
There is consistency in the logic of the poem from beginning to end. Decapitation and dismemberment are the price of the debt you pay to Derry — especially if you are not Pennywise! Decimation of the most vulnerable is thus required to sustain the capitalist white-picket-fenced social order of Derry America.
The connection between dismemberment, decapitation, capital punishment, and capitalism comes together in the dark underground tunnels of Derry. The archetypal image of the sacrificial slaughter of children, their decapitation and dismemberment, gives expression to a level of systemic violence that is required to maintain the status quo of Derry America.
Herzogian connection
Right from the beginning, in this initial track of IT’s soundtrack, “Every 27 Years,” Benjamin Wallfisch makes the Herzogian connection between childhood nostalgia and collective murder. This nursery rhyme, in the first 40 seconds of the musical score, establishes the unspeakable connection between child murder and the capitalist social order. The name “Pennywise” is indeed emblematic of a monetary and fiscal order whose dismal underground It represents.
This horrifying English nursery rhyme gives musical utterance to the unconscious violence of our system’s capital order. With images of bells, religious and institutional symbols, the dynamic of loan and debt, and the desire to grow rich, the rhyme develops a scene that is fated to lead to the horrifying end of beheading and dismemberment.
Shelter from the Storm
Once the voices of children expire, we hear the keys of a maternal piano which opens the film with its inaugural track “Every 27 Years.” Providing shelter from the storm, the warm melody of the piano welcomes us to Derry.
In the novel, Stephen King has the mother figure play Für Elise on the piano, while Bill helps Georgie make his fateful newspaper boat. Wallfisch recaptures the melancholic introspection of Beethoven, but goes on further to re-create his version of Für Elise for Derry.
The storm of collective murder that comes every 27 years has been unleashed over the town. The Shakespearean image of The Tempest may lurk behind this image of a storm as an archetypal symbol of the mimetic cycles of violence that threaten to break a human community from within.
Into this narrative atmosphere Wallfisch introduces his musical elements with a flavor of nostalgia, which gives this initial piece an indelible American character. So does the composer recreate Beethoven’s masterpiece into an American classic.
The “maternal” quality of the melody is highlighted in the 2017 film by allowing the piano to transition from a non-diegetic into a diegetic musical space. Just as the novelist envisioned it, mother actually plays this piece on her piano inside the Denbrough home.
As a diegetic element, the characters themselves can hear the tune which is used by the composer to welcome us into the hallowed interior of a Derry home.
The fact that a mother is the one who plays this initial piece reveals to us the distinctive stamp of the archetypal Mother as a ruling symbol of its mythic dimension. Its associations with the violence of the storm, the nostalgia for a safe home, a sheltering space, express the paradoxical nature that belongs to every archetype. For these are bipolar or even multipolar structural entities of the collective mind.
As the maternal abyss of incestuous violence, Mother is the raging wind and storm, the environmental chaos, that has taken down the electric grid of Derry, leaving all the houses dark. This Mother of Darkness is descending upon Derry as It prepares to unleash a new flood of infanticidal violence.
As mother—the home maker, the very house that shelters—she is the maternal guardian of the most intimate space of familiar relations. She offers solace and protection against the storm of murderous incestuous violence. The undertone of sadness which haunts this melody has an equal measure of foreboding and nostalgia. A latent shadow appears with its sweet melody as it prepares a young boy, Georgie Denbrough for “his strange death” (It, 6), on his way down the gutter of sacrificial slaughter.
The foreboding character of Mother’s piano playing is emphasized in the book with italics: “My mother was playing that the day Georgie died” (12), as Georgie’s older brother remembers the day with goosebumps.
With this foreboding, a deep nostalgia also calls us back home and welcomes us into the town of Derry. We feel cozy and secure, well enveloped in the maternal fold of a safe home.
The ending of the piece suggests a certain limit has been reached. Overcome by sweet lethargy, the melody slowly gives way to the silence, vanishing into the abysmal silence from which It emerged.
The soundtrack of IT is a magnificent complement to the mythos of the film. It helps to articulate its murderous fury, ratifying the unspeakable in the realm of music and sound. Finding a distinctive voice, the music heightens the horror of what is truly horrifying about the collective Id, its capacity for collective murder and child sacrifice, in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, “the apotheosis of all monsters,” “A creature … especially hungry for boymeat” (9) living in the underground sewage system of our very Derry, American society.
MythBlast authored by:
Norland Téllez is an award-winning writer and animation director who currently teaches Animation and Character Design courses at Otis College of Art and Design, Cal State Fullerton. He is also conducting a Life Drawing Lab at USC School of Cinematic Arts. He earned his Ph.D. from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2009 with a dissertation on the Popol-Wuh of the K’iche’ Maya, which he is currently translating and illustrating in its archetypal dimensions as the Wisdom of the Peoples. You can learn more at norlandtellez.com.
This MythBlast was inspired by the Separation stage of the hero's journey.
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