Linda Ronstadt streams surge 4900 per cent after ‘The Last Of Us’ episode three

31 January, 2023

The Last Of Us

Streams of Linda Ronstadt’s music have surged 4900 per cent after her music was featured in The Last Of Us episode three.

After the episode aired, which featured the track from 1970 in a number of guises, the track’s US streaming numbers increased by a staggering amount. Spotify confirmed the figure in a post on its social media sites.

“Oh, so all of our hearts were breaking last night,” the Spotify News account tweeted out. The post revealed that uptick in streams was over the period of one hour between 11pm and 12am Eastern Standard Time (five hours behind GMT).

‘Long, Long Time’ was heard prominently throughout the episode. It was featured heavily, in particular, in scenes with survivors Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), as well as later in scenes with Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey).

With Bill and Frank, the song is pivotal to their relationship. In the scene, Frank is sitting down at a piano and discovers a Linda Ronstadt songbook.

Frank sits down at the piano and finds a book of her songs already there. He starts to play before Bill comes in to take over and sing the first few lines of the song. The actual sync of the track is played toward the end of the episode.

Linda Ronstadt

The song choice was made by executive producer and director Craig Mazin, but only after his friend Seth Rudetsky suggested it. Mazin explained he was looking for a song for the two characters to connect over.

Speaking with Variety, Mazin said: “I knew that song needed to hit certain things about longing and aching and endlessly unrequited love. I could not find the right song for the life of me.

“I was trying and trying, and then I texted my friend Seth Rudetsky, who is the host of Sirius XM on Broadway and a savant. I told him, ‘Here’s all the things I need,’ and two seconds later: ‘Linda Ronstadt, ‘Long, Long Time’.’ I was like, there it is. That’s it!”

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