Why Charlie's Theme Uses a Banjo and Wine Glass on "Poker Face"

Every great main character deserves to step into a bespoke theme song. But it is rarely played on the banjo. But as viewers of Peacock's hit mystery series "Poker Face" know, nothing else could do justice to Natasha Lyonne's Charlie Cale, a human lie detector on the run in small-town America.

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"In Act 1 of each episode, we see the murder, and then at the beginning of Act 2, Charlie appears, and that's where we hear him," said composer Nathan Johnson. The creative decision strayed from the convention established in the crime-of-the-week shows of the 70s and 80s that inspired the series by not falling under title cards. Instead, Johnson wanted to allow audiences "to land in a completely new place each time, without preconceptions".

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"With all the classic serialized storytelling, we love the music, and the title sequence immediately throws us so strongly into that world after just a few notes," he added. "What I love about not doing this is that it allows the world to be a completely new place every time."

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Johnson, a longtime collaborator (and cousin) of "Poker Face" creator Rian Johnson, knew he wanted to create a dusty Americana score with a "desert locale vibe." That's when the showrunner suggested we look into the banjo. Not expecting this at all, the musician went out and bought one and started writing and exploring the instrument. "It really became the anchor, and I built the whole score around it," he added.

According to the composer, Rian liked the idea of ​​"exploring the warmth of it and looking at banjo usage outside of bluegrass styles".

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A guitarist, Johnson approached the creation of the score from a non-traditional perspective and enlisted famed banjo player Bennett Sullivan to play what he had written to see if it worked. He then formed a "dream band", made up of hand-picked members, including drummer Jay Bellerose, David Pilcher on double bass, Johnny Rogers on tuned wine glasses, and Judson Crane on guitar.

"I wrote the themes and scored the Rian episodes, then Judd took the themes I had written and worked on the other episodes, creating the score for those," Johnson revealed. "It was a bit like a group approach."

This isn't the first time the awarded glass has played a significant role in Johnson's score. "It's just such an eerie, beautiful sound that's been woven into my work since 'Brick,'" he recalled. "We used tuned wine glasses because we couldn't afford strings and used them to create these atmospheric long string beds."

The band "Poker Face" also used a banjo tremolo to "tip into that darker, more ominous element" and answer a few key questions. He pondered, “How can we create a sound that doesn't sound upbeat and brave? How can we create a dark, dissonant sound using a banjo, bass drums, and double bass?"

While the style remained consistent across all 10 episodes, Johnson used the changing locations and his own travel experiences to influence where he went with the soundscape each time.

"I knew they were shooting the first episode in Nevada, and then Charlie would be on the run throughout this one," he recalls. "All those seedy, underbellied American towns I've been to on road trips when touring with bands were what I was thinking."