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Downtown

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Downtown

Artist

Petula Clark

Released

1964

Heard/referenced in

"A Tale of Two Cities"
"One of Us"

Songfacts entry

"Downtown" is a song written by Tony Hatch which was performed and released in 1964 by Petula Clark. It has appeared multiple times in Lost, the first instance being the opening scene of "A Tale of Two Cities", when Juliet played it on her CD player before the book club. It was featured twice in "One of Us": in Juliet's car as she and Rachel arrived to the Mittelos Bioscience center; and during the abridged sequence in Juliet's flashback that recapped the original book club scene.

The opening scene of "A Tale of Two Cities" is reminiscent of the Season 2 opening scene, in which Desmond puts on "Make Your Own Kind of Music" by "Mama" Cass Elliot to listen to while in the Swan, but the audience is not immediately aware that the setting is on the Island (and not in a flashback).

Lyrics

“

When you're alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown
When you've got worries,
All the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go
Downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown, no finer place for sure,
Downtown, everything's waiting for you
(Downtown)
Don't hang around
And let your problems surround you
There are movie shows downtown
Maybe you know
Some little places to go to
Where they never close downtown
Just listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossanova
You'll be dancing with 'em, too, before the night is over
Happy again
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go
Downtown where all the lights are bright,
Downtown, waiting for you tonight,
Downtown, you're gonna be alright now
(Downtown downtown)
Downtown
(Downtown)
And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along
So, maybe I'll see you there
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares and go
Downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown, don't wait a minute more,
Downtown, everything's waiting for you
Downtown (downtown) downtown (downtown)
Downtown (downtown) downtown (downtown)
(repeat and fade out)

”

Trivia

"Downtown" is one of three examples in the series where a diegetic song (originating from within story and heard by the characters) is incorporated into the musical score, thereby becoming non-diegetic. After Juliet puts the CD in the CD player and listens to it, it plays throughout the rest of the book club recap as part of the musical score in "One of Us". The other examples of this scoring technique so far are "Shambala" and "La Mer".
Though the song that is played is by Petula Clark, the cover of the album taken out of the shelf is Speaking in Tongues by Talking Heads; according to the catalog number, the CD itself is Okemah And The Melody Of Riot by Son Volt.
- According to the October 09, 2006 episode of the official podcast, Juliet just put the wrong CD in the jewel case. (From their comments it sounds like they may have had to change music at the eleventh hour, and this is just their explanation for the apparent inconsistency. The first line of the lyrics of "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)", the last song on Speaking in Tongues, are "Home is where I want to be". [1])