The Handsome Family are an alternative country husband-and-wife duo comprising Brett and Rennie Sparks. This Southern gothic tune was selected for the theme song for True Detective by the show's music director, T Bone Burnett. Though it fits in nicely with the HBO crime drama's themes, the song has actually been around 2003, when it was a track on The Handsome Family's Singing Bones album. "People keep asking us how we managed to write such a perfect song to open True Detective," said Rennie Sparks. "They compliment us on all the various connections to the storyline we've managed to include and how perfectly our song emotionally sets the pace for each episode. They think I'm lying when I say that the song was written long before the TV show was a spark of an idea. Maybe time really is a flat circle."
Songwriter and co-vocalist Rennie Sparks was surprised at the song's prominent placing in True Detective. "They contacted us a year ago," she said, "to use the song for 30 seconds as as interrogation scene. We knew nothing until the show premiered. Brett saw that opening sequence and hit himself so hard he bruised his legs."
This was used as the opening song for Guns n' Roses' 2014 world tour.
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