Song Exploder - Air - Playground Love (feat. Gordon Tracks)

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

The band Air is a duo from Versailles, France. Their first EP came out in 1995, followed by their critically acclaimed debut album, ‘Moon Safari,' which was an international hit. Then they made the music for the film ‘The Virgin Suicides,‘ which was written and directed by Oscar-winner Sofia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. The movie came out in 1999, and it was Sofia Coppola’s first film. An album version of Air’s score came out in 2000, and it was nominated for a Brit award. Pitchfork put it at number four on their list of the best film scores of all time. In addition to the instrumental music that appears in the movie, Air also wrote a song for the end credits called “Playground Love.” That song featured Sofia Coppola’s future husband, Thomas Mars, from the French band Phoenix, on vocals. Phoenix was still a very new band, and he and Sofia hadn’t even met yet. Thomas appears on the song under the name Gordon Tracks. So for this episode, I spoke to all of them: Nicolas and JB from Air; Sofia Coppola; Thomas Mars; as well as Brian Reitzell, the music supervisor of the film.For more info, visit songexploder.net/air.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. The band Air is a duo from Versailles, France. The first EP came out in 1995, followed by their critically acclaimed debut album, Moon Safari, which was an international hit. Then they made the music for the film The Virgin Suicides, which was written and directed by Oscar winner Sophia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. The movie came out in 1999, and it was Sophia Coppola's first film. An album version of Ayer's score came out in 2000 and was nominated for a Brit Award. Pitchfork put it at number four on their list of the best film scores of all time.

In addition to the instrumental music that appears in the movie, Air also wrote a song for the end credits, called Playground Love. That song featured Sophia Coppola's future husband, Tomas Mars, from the French band Phoenix on vocals. Phoenix was still a very new band, and he and Sophia hadn't even met yet. Thomas appears on the song under the name Gordon Tracks. So for this episode, I spoke to all of them. Nicola and J.B. from Air, Sophia Coppola, Thomas Mars, as well as Brian Reitzel, the music supervisor on the film. The story of the song Playground Love begins over 25 years ago, with Sophia Coppola starting her work on The Virgin Suicides.

I'm Sophia Coppola. How did you first hear Air's music? I remember I was in London and I was writing the script for Virgin Suicide. So it was probably 97 or 98. And I was in Rough Trade record shop just looking around at albums. And I saw airs, I guess, a CD. And I remember just asking the guy like, oh, is this good? Do you like it?

And they recommended it. So I bought it and I took it home. And I was listening to it while I was working on my script. and I just got really into the atmosphere of it. And because the story is set in the 70s, but it's actually 20 years in the future looking back at that time, I like the idea of not having music from the period for the score, that it's a memory,

and then to have contemporary music that's related to the 70s, and it had that quality. It was both current and 70s retro. My name is Brian Reitzel. I was the music supervisor for the Virgin Suisseau. This was before the release of Moon Safari. When Moon Safari did come out a few months later, it just sealed the deal. How did you all actually meet?

I met the Air guys in L.A. when they were here doing a music video. It's a very L.A. classic story. We met him at the party at the Chateau Marmon. That's so unoriginal. I am Nicola from the band Air. I am J.B. Dunkel, also from Air. And so we met him in a party. and then we decided to play with him some drums.

Because Brian Razel is also a drummer. He was in this band called Red Cross. They were putting together a band with all US musicians to do a tour for Moon Safari. So the timing was just perfect. Had you two ever had any experience scoring film before? No. No.

That's why it was cool because we never did some traction, she never did movies. So we say, okay, let's go for the ride and see what happens. the style of the movie is very beautiful and it's kind of a ethereal in a way. But we started by reading the book and the book is much more dark. It's so very fast. The idea was to do very dark music, especially because we were coming Aftermoon Safari, which was a very light kind of easy listening album.

And we wanted to show the dark side of us. And also it was a good way to avoid the second album, syndrome because you can have a lot of pressure. But if you decide that this second album is a soundtrack, it's a totally different context. We had this concept that every part had to be understandable and listenable on his own. So it was not exactly like a real soundtrack. It was more like a sort of soundtracky pop album around the movie.

And we had like some VHS tapes, like some sequences of the movie. and we would improvise. How did the two of you write together? Are you in the same room when you're writing? Yeah, we were even on the same piano. You sit at the piano together? Yeah, it's a four-hands recording. I played the melody and JV played the chords.

We had like an eight-track recorder with no memory, and so when something was wrong, we had to re-record again until we play it. So we would like re-play constantly what we were doing and it was a perfect way to learn the song. But this theme, this melody, these chords, we recorded them many times, like in many versions. We did like a vibraphen version, the organ version,

we did the Rhodes version. Brian Redzel flew to Paris, he did the drums. There were variations of a main theme threaded throughout the score. We kept the basic basic idea of it. In a way, the other versions were real souls. Thomas Pankalter from Daft Punk, he said something in an interview that I really understand. He said that he's always like putting everything in the trash. And this is a beautiful way to make music just to delete and to destroy constantly what you do. And at the end, there will be

like something surviving and it's going to be good. They took this team high school events all over the movie. And so they called us and they asked, yeah, we need to do a song for the credits. Rather than license a song, we thought it would be cooler and more classic to have our original song for the film. What's the significance for you of the end credit song in a film? I always like that's so important because it's kind of like your big finish. It's the end. It's the feeling that the audience leaves with.

and it's sort of a punctuation. So I always feel like it's really important. I think having an original end credit song is just a classic way to tie everything together, to have the music crystallize into one complete piece. I suggested a song arrangement with a vocal of the main theme, but I think it was hard for them at first. They had already delivered the score.

I was back in L.A. They thought they were done, you know. Plus, we wanted vocals. At the time, we didn't sing on our albums, but I think we tried to describe this magic moment of having like two young people falling in love. First of all, you do some yogurts. We call it yogurts.

It means that you try to sing something, but it doesn't make any sense. And the sounds are falling naturally and they transform into words. So like anytime or anywhere, this kind of thing, it has to sound good when you sing it through the vocal order. We were in Versailles. the only singer we knew in Versailles was Thomas. So my name is Thomas Morris. Somehow for this specific project, I pick chord and tracks as an artist's name.

And I'm a member of the band Phoenix. We have a long history with Elle. Because we were, their backing band, they were going to tour in the UK first. The label thought, we just signed Phoenix, they don't have experience. I'm sure they'd love to get some. live experience and play with you guys.

I was also playing drums in my band on the record. And so we thought we'll be their backing band and I'll play drums. And when we were rehearsing, they just finished Moon Safari. They were working on Virgin Suicides. So it was really exciting for us

because it was like going into the headquarters of like a band about to explode internationally. And so we called him SMN. We have to do a song for this movie. Can you sing it and can you write lyrics? And by the way, can you do the drums as well? And say, yeah, I'll do it.

They had written one line. They had written anytime, anywhere. Ice clover is in F sharp and we changed it into C for Thomas. Because of his vocal range? Yeah. Yeah, for him to sing properly on it. Where did you start with lyrics? I specifically saw the scene of Tripp Fontaine on the football.

field. There was also a famous shot of him getting into the high school in slow motion, and all the girls are turning, like, his hair is blowing. The music was so inspiring that the words came really quickly. Did they give you any direction as to how they wanted you to sing the song? So they are very loose on certain things, and they're very extremely precise on others. They are very loose on the lyrics. Like everything that was my creativity somehow, they really trusted me on this. But the rhythm of the song, they wanted it to be exactly on the grid. It was almost like if I was out of tune, it didn't matter, but if I was like slightly behind, that was a huge problem for them. I remember them being very precise in that sense.

There's something really specific and kind of creepy in a great way. You're almost whispering when you sing. I remember growing up listening a lot to in excess on kick, they have a recording technique that's pretty incredible because it makes it sound really close. This is before ASMR and it was an ultimate ear candy growing up. And I remember that was a reference for myself. I was like, I wanted to.

sound like this. At the time, I didn't understand that you need a right amount of space between the mic and the voice. I was like, let me get as close as possible. So I was always, when I would set it up, it was always, I would push it so that I was so close. Yet my hands are shaking. I feel my body remains. I have to ask you more about the Gordon tracks part. Why did you decide to record it under a pseudonym? Well, Phoenix hadn't released anything yet, and I didn't want everybody to talk about the Air Project when we were doing our Phoenix promo. I wanted it to be only about Phoenix, and I didn't want to stand out from the band. And then I always loved, like, pseudonym. In the band, Mars is not my real last name. It's just fun to have something that was

even more exotic. The story of playground love, continues after this. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Keesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some

folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Robe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In The Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co,

or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. What was your first reaction to Tomas's vocals? Me, when I heard him singing, I remember that I like very much the lyrics because they were really, really super simple. Why did you like that they were simple?

Because they were really understandable. And, you know, I think that I'm not good in English, but I feel when it fits into the song well. And it was okay. You know, it was being delivered really clearly and properly, and so I liked it very much. I'm on fire on the playground love. I love the lazy drumming. It's the Ringo fascination of just the most basic simple drumming. Back then, a snail drum, if you would hear a snail drum that you liked, you knew you were going to like the record.

You couldn't judge an album. by its cover, but you could judge a song by its nail drum sound. They understood that it all came down to taste. That's what I like by drummers. I like when they have a cool attitude. You know, like Ringo Stars. When you look at him playing, he's got a cool gesture. And Thomas, when he plays drums, he's so stylish,

the way he holds his sticks and the way he holds his arms. You can't fail and making a bad drum take when you have this kind of attitude, you know? I always say it needs to sound like a record. Like you can bring me any good musician I know if it doesn't sound like a record It can be as good as you want But that's what J.B says about Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan sounds like a record You can bring some better singers than him But they don't sound like record And so we wanted it as muted as possible And as like crunch Has depth at the same time Yeah, that's the 70s way You know

Everything sounds dry The acoustic guitar, there's no reverb Who's playing the acoustic guitar on this track? I played it the chords are changing to fit the melody and that's why when it's repeating for the second time the chord has to change into a diminished seventh.

It's a very annoying chord to play on the guitar. But that makes like the original color of the song is because of the presence of this diminished seventh. Basically this song, the feeling of it is something that is flying because it stays on the same bass so it's like not moving it's like flying

the beauty of it is there is like a sort of hesitation like the course don't know where to go but each time he stopped singing the song was kind of fading down a little bit so the three of us we talked and he said yeah I got a friend who lives nearby play saxophone and you can call him so it will feel the gap between the vocals.

And he called him and we saw this young kid, very young, like maybe 18. We told him we really like the lyric song. Walk on the White Side. Yeah, walk on the white side. And can you sound like that a little bit? And he did it in one take. In the morning, I came earlier and I had to do some vocals. And I did like three notes.

following the chords. I'm thinking quite out of tune. But for some reason, when you add some reverb and you put it on the back, that's okay. It makes a sort of like feminine waves of sounds behind.

And it makes a good, how to say, cream of sound behind because you don't really hear them, but they are there and you feel the presence of it all over the song. It was exactly what Sophia and I had hoped would have.

And, you know, there's some really amazing 70s pop songs in the film, and it held up next to them. I don't know if it helped her to edit and cut the movie, but I think that on the last two weeks, she gave to the movie something much more glamour and something much more romantic. I think that she has cut the moments where it was kind of dark and negative, and she turned it into a love story in a way, and the song helped. The movie was presented in Sundance and the record company had the idea to do a showcase to promote the soundtrack. They played at Sundance for our premiere

and Tomah played with them that's when we first met. And so since then, as in the fairy tales, you know, they got married and had a lot of children. I love that song and I love when Toma plays it

especially when he plays it in concert now or live I feel like that's my song. It's such a fun story for us. One of my daughter was playing it yesterday. And so I came in the kitchen and I heard her

play the song. I thought like that's so special that she likes the song that brought our parents together. And now here's Playground Love by Air featuring Gordon Tracks in its entirety. Visit songexplor.net slash air for more.

There's a new 25th anniversary analog mix version of the Virgin Suicides album called the Virgin Suicides Redux that came out this year. There's a link to buy it on the Song Exploder site. You can also watch the music video for the song Playground Love, which was directed by Sophia Coppola and her brother, Roman Coppola. Also, if you like this episode and you want to hear more and more from some of these folks specifically, there's an episode that I did with Phoenix from 2017, episode 112, and there's an episode I did with Brian Reitzel, episode 15, from way back in 2014.

You can find those and all the other episodes of the podcast at songexplor.net slash episodes. This wraps up the 12th year of Song Exploder, which feels hard to believe even as I say it. I'll be back in January, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday. In the meantime, this episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan, and Kathleen Smith, with production assistants from Tiger Biscope. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts.

You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. I write a newsletter where I talk about the making of some of these episodes and about music and film and TV and generally about the creative process. You can find a link to the newsletter on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt, which makes a great gift, by the way, at SongExploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.