This week is a cheat. It’s an intentional cheat, because I composed and scheduled all of my Music Monday posts long before I went on vacation, and a kind of progression developed out of that. Two songs with country ties, followed by a completely unrelated classical piano solo that utterly changed the way I listened to music. And to keep this sense of pairs going, I wanted to share a piece that I feel is very much influenced by Philip Glass and minimalism, especially when you compare the very start of both pieces.

Why is it a cheat, then? Because I’ve already gushed about this piece over at Speculative Chic. My Favorite Things may be a weekly column, but unless we have five Mondays in a month, I only contribute to one per month, and early on, I gushed about today’s piece: “Light of the Seven” by Ramin Djawadi.

So instead of saying the same thing with new words, I’m going to copy what I said over there. Forgive me, and please, even if you don’t watch the show, push play, sit back, and enjoy.

This may be a little late, but I’m in love with the track “Light of the Seven” from the Game of Thrones Season 6 score by Ramin Djawadi. All of his work on the show has been phenomenal, but this track really stands out because it’s SO unlike anything the show has utilized thus far. The season six finale (don’t worry, no spoilers) started out with this gorgeous piano solo that’s simply haunting, and immediately you feel like something big and important is going to happen. It draws out the tension in a maddening way. Like I said, no spoilers, but watching the events on the show almost overpowers the music scoring it, and it wasn’t until I listened to the track by itself that I really fell in love: how it starts out with the piano and adds the strings, interplays between the two, and then adds the haunting vocals from two boys, and then lets lose with a mad organ frenzy, and finally folds in the orchestral movement for the finale. And if you listen carefully, you’ll most certainly catch a variation on the opening credits theme that we all know and love. I’ve seen the season six finale criticized partially because this song doesn’t feel like it belongs on the show. It does. It so does. It’s beautiful and haunting and if you start listening to it, you’re not going to get it out of your head. It’s a symphony in and of itself.

Like it? Love it? Hate it? Sound off below!

Reminder: Music Monday is about the music, not the videos. Videos are just the medium I’m using to share the music, and some videos aren’t actually videos at all. Enjoy the songs, but if YouTube forces you to watch some sort of advertisement before you can get to the music, please be patient.