| "Agatha All Along" | |
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_title_card.png) Title card from theAgatha All Along musical sequence in theWandaVision episode "Breaking the Fourth Wall" | |
| Song byKathryn Hahn,Robert Lopez, Eric Bradley, Greg Whipple, Jasper Randall and Gerald White | |
| from the albumWandaVision: Episode 7 (Original Soundtrack) | |
| Released | February 23, 2021 (2021-02-23) |
| Genre | Surf rock |
| Length | 1:02 |
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| "Agatha All Along" theme song and title sequence onYouTube | |
"Agatha All Along", also known as "It Was ______ All Along", is an original song from theMarvel StudiosDisney+ miniseriesWandaVision. Written by the series' theme song composersKristen Anderson-Lopez andRobert Lopez for the seventh episode, "Breaking the Fourth Wall", the song was performed by starKathryn Hahn, with Lopez, Eric Bradley, Greg Whipple, Jasper Randall, and Gerald White serving as backup singers. The song drew inspiration from the theme songs fromThe Munsters andThe Addams Family.
"Agatha All Along" wentviral after appearing in "Breaking the Fourth Wall", and was officially released on February 23, 2021, as part of theWandaVision: Episode 7 (Original Soundtrack). It debuted onBillboard'sDigital Song Sales chart at number 36, and earned Anderson-Lopez and Lopez aPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics, among other accolades.
In December 2020, songwriting coupleRobert Lopez andKristen Anderson-Lopez were announced to have written theme songs for some of the episodes of theMarvel StudiosDisney+ miniseriesWandaVision.[1] The seventh episode of the series, "Breaking the Fourth Wall", which was released on Disney+ on February 19, 2021, ended by revealing thatKathryn Hahn's character Agnes was actuallyAgatha Harkness and the manipulator ofWanda Maximoff's idyllic suburban lifestyle inspired by American sitcoms in Westview, New Jersey.[2][3] The reveal was accompanied by a title sequence for the seriesAgatha All Along, which featured Anderson Lopez and Lopez's theme and sequences showing moments Agatha had been behind.[4][5][6] The credits for "Breaking the Fourth Wall" list the song's name as "It Was ______ All Along".[7][8][9] When developing the episode, theWandaVision writers wrote placeholder theme songs into the episodes before Anderson-Lopez and Lopez were brought on board, with Cameron Squires, the writer of "Breaking the Fourth Wall", originally naming the Agatha theme "That's So Agatha",[10] as a reference to the television seriesThat's So Raven.[11]
"Agatha All Along" was written to be similar tothe theme song forThe Munsters and "The Addams Family Theme" fromThe Addams Family.[8] The couple were drawn to the past monster-centric series' music to give Agatha's theme song a "witchy, ghoulish feeling" with "a little bit of anOompa-Loompa tenor feel to it too" and the feeling of something in a haunted house.[8][12] Initially, Anderson-Lopez and Lopez tried creating a song in a similar vein to "That Girl" byStevie Wonder, but they felt it was not the right fit. They then began thinking of the song as being about witches, leading them to shows about witches and Goth figures as well as "Halloween-y" songs with a "grinding, growling"baritone saxophone.[12]
"Agatha All Along"'s chord progression begins in E minor before moving atritone to B-flat in the bass, with a bridge centered inG major and a "Shave and a Haircut" ending.[13] The tritone is the same interval used by Anderson-Lopez and Lopez in the final two notes of their four-noteWandaVision motif used in their other theme songs.[8][12] The song includes "a big-band horn riff",[14][15] "kitschy" electric harpsichord for the repeated chorus,[9][12] "cheery baritones",[9] a "'clap-clap, clap' snare",[13] and is sung in "kooky-spooky voices", with lyrics that reveal how Agatha had been behind all of the show's tragedies.[14][16]
Lopez and Anderson-Lopez produced the song,[17] with Anderson-Lopez conceiving the lyrics and Lopez composing the music.[12] "Agatha All Along" was arranged and orchestrated byDave Metzger.[11] Hahn is the lead singer on the theme, with Lopez singing backup alongside Eric Bradley, Greg Whipple, Jasper Randall, and Gerald White, the other male backup singers from previous theme songs.[8][16] Because of theCOVID-19 pandemic, Hahn recorded her vocals overZoom.[11] TheWandaVision spin-off series centered on Agatha, with Hahn reprising her role, is also titledAgatha All Along (2024).[18]
"Agatha All Along" was released digitally byMarvel Music andHollywood Records on February 23, 2021, as the second track on the soundtrackWandaVision: Episode 7 (Original Soundtrack).[19][20] The soundtrack was originally scheduled to be released on February 26, withThe Verge speculating the release was moved up due to the popularity of the song.[20] On September 6, 2024, Hollywood Records released aDave Audé remix of the song.[21]
Upon the release of "Breaking the Fourth Wall", "Agatha All Along" wentviral, with viewers particularly drawn to the theme,[17][2][3] creating various remixes, memes, andTikTok videos in the following days.[16][6][22][20] Atrap remix created by Leland Philpot received the attention of Anderson-Lopez, who called it "the most glorious thing", while Lopez enjoyed a rock remix from Timmy Sean, saying it was "incredible" that Sean was able to release it shortly after the episode without any sheet music available.[12] By February 23, thehashtag for the song had become a trending topic onTwitter, with Disney linking the hashtag to their Agatha emoji.[23] Disney's president of marketing Asad Ayaz called the moment "a zeitgeisty thing" and his team quickly released the official clip after unofficial ones were going viral. Ayaz noted that the marketing team had a plan around the reveal of Agnes really being Agatha and allowed the fans to help "drive the conversation".[24] Lopez admitted that they did not anticipate "Agatha All Along" would have garnered so much popularity, since by that point they had assumed none of their themes would have become hits since the previous one had not reached any level of popularity.[12]Matt Shakman, the episode's director, and Hahn were also taken aback by the song's popularity.[25][26]
Commentators called the song "catchy",[6][2][27] with "delicious" lyrics,[22] and likened it to "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" fromThe WitcherNetflix series, which also went viral.[16][20] The song was also called "the officialsong of summer 2021",[16] the song of the year,[27] and a song that would be requested at celebrations and nightclubs following theCOVID-19 pandemic.[27][14][16] Alex Zalben atDecider expanded on why this theme appeared to be more popular than the pastWandaVision themes, saying that emulatingThe Munsters theme allowed it to have "a catchy riff that works, a tried and true earworm" and adding that songs for villains, as seen in many ofWalt Disney Animation Studios' films, are more fun and let the villain "ham it up".[16] TheLos Angeles Times' August Brown agreed with Zalben that "Agatha All Along" wasWandaVision's villain song, describing it as "a meme-able, deliciously vampy single that gleefully twisted the plot of the show" and one that would "likely live on outside it as entrance music for anyone looking to stir chaos". Brown called Hahn's singing perfect with "brassy conviction".[14] Antonio Ferme ofVariety called "Agatha All Along" "the greatest character introduction song of all time" and "arguably the most aggressive earworm" of theWandaVision theme songs.[3] Writing forPolygon, Joshua Rivera felt "Agatha All Along" was Anderson-Lopez and Lopez's "finest moment" ofWandaVision, calling the song the series' "first real earworm: short, sticky, and extremely meme-able".[9]Collider's Gregory Lawrence felt the theme was an "objectively great surf-rock banger" with "pitch-perfect aping of '60s surf rock [and horror sitcom theme] tropes".[13] Lawrence's colleague Emma Fraser ranked "Agatha All Along" as the best of theWandaVision theme songs, believing it would lead to Anderson-Lopez and Lopez winning anEmmy.[15]
Following its release, "Agatha All Along" peaked at number one oniTunes' Soundtrack chart,[28][12] and by February 24, 2021, reached fifth on iTunes' Top 100 singles chart.[28] For the week ending February 25, 2021, "Agatha All Along" placed 36th onBillboard'sDigital Song Sales chart, with 3,000 downloads, while also garnering 1.6 million U.S. streams.[29] The song charted for three weeks onOCC'sUK Singles chart, from March 3 to March 18, 2021, peaking at 53rd in its second week.[30]
"Agatha All Along" was nominated at the2021 MTV Movie & TV Awards forBest Musical Moment;[31] the song and Hahn were nominated at the 2021Dorian Awards for Best TV Musical Performance;[32] for the73rd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Anderson-Lopez and Lopez wonOutstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the song;[33] and the song was nominated at the64th Annual Grammy Awards for theGrammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media.[34]
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