“Game of Thrones” was known as the fantasy show for people who don’t like fantasy, thanks to language and graphic content akin to HBO’s contemporary dramas. But it also endeavored to sound different from previous fantasy media, replacing twee flutes with composer Ramin Djawadi’s deep strings, rhythmic drumming and a theme song that sought to inspire its audience to battle.
Spinoff series “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is not trying to be “Game of Thrones.” Nor is it trying to emulate the high court drama and mysticism of “House of the Dragon,” also scored by Djawadi. Instead, the story of a lone knight and his young companion forges a new tonal path in the “Game of Thrones” universe. And it has the music to match.
“We had mashed up this medieval western cowboy feeling,” says series creator Ira Parker — and after bringing in composer Dan Romer, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” possessed “that little bit of sparkle in there that gives you coming-of-age childlike hope… It’s an adventure story.”
Music is intertwined with the story. The first season takes place during a tournament in which lonely knight Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) finds an apprentice in the young Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). Their journey highlights the smallfolk of Westeros more than the previous installments.
Music supervisor Alex Stacey says Parker knew from the beginning that songs would be central to the show. “He was like, ‘I just wanna hear music at all times because a festival is happening. Anytime Dunk is walking through the village, we should hear a fiddle player playing somewhere,’” he says.
Stacey and fellow music supervisor Evyen Klean came on board in the script phase to help plan out the multitude of songs that are heard as the characters travel through the tournament.
“Your brain starts forgetting if it’s part of the score or if it’s actually happening in the reality of the show,” Romer says.
The series’ musical landscape also includes a myriad of folk songs, such as the drunken tavern tune “Alice With Three Fingers” and the childish rhyming couplets of “The Hammer and the Anvil.” The writing team researched medieval songs and kids’ rhymes to develop the tunes. Djawadi also returned to write the melodies, with lyrics written by Parker.
“It’s my secret favorite part of the writing process,” says Parker. “If anyone needs a funny songwriter on a show, I’m very happy to do that.”
To craft the score, Romer went back to research he had done for the 2017 medieval comedy “The Little Hours” about the tonality of string instruments from that time period. The score took roughly six months to craft and involved the creation of new tools to build the earthy and whimsical sounds, including a cello based on Mongolian string instruments.
“I wanted to have a feeling of a lonely cowboy out in the West but there are instruments that we associate with that [genre] that wouldn’t feel like Westeros,” says Romer, who substitutes electric guitars and slide whistles with fiddles and real whistling.
The music in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” toes the line between indulgence and realism. Many of the show’s most intense moments, like Dunk burying his mentor or the climactic trial by combat, have no score at all. Parker says of the sound design, “Everything should feel tactile. It should be focused on the rain and the trudge of your footsteps and the mud, the things that you hone in on when you’re having an out-of-body experience.”
Other sequences allow the bombastic possibilities of the series to take over. A pivotal reveal at the end of Episode 3 was edited using the UK version of “The Apprentice” theme song as temp music during postproduction. This guided Romer to build a song around the heightened tempo and emotions of the scene, including the use of an operatic choir.
The show also features two references to the original “Game of Thrones” theme. The first moment is played for comedy: As Dunk readies himself for adventure, the theme begins to swell before cutting to him in a bout of sickness.
“We needed something else that sounded like the call to greatness that wasn’t part of him yet. And there’s no greater call to greatness than the ‘Game of Thrones’ theme,” says Parker.
The second instance comes at the end of Episode 4 when Dunk recruits Prince Baelor Targaryen to join his side in his trial by combat. Romer says it was planned from before he joined the production that Dunk’s theme would blend into the “Game of Thrones” theme in the moment he has a chance to be a hero. “That four note riff, the ‘Da da dada da da,’ being able to put that underneath something that I was writing was such an enthralling experience because it immediately makes it so recognizable and so memorable.”
But the series’ most bold musical decision comes at the end of the last episode. As Dunk and Egg embark on their next journey, the opening bars of “Sixteen Tons,” a 1947 song by Tennessee Ernie Ford, close out the season. It’s the first use of anachronistic existing music in the franchise’s history.
The song was proposed early in development by Parker, but it was the reaction from “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin that cemented the tune’s presence.
“He said, ‘You know, this was the ringtone for a very dear friend of mine on my phone who had just recently passed away,’” says Parker. “When he told me that story I just sort of felt like, ‘Maybe this is right. Maybe this is supposed to be there.’”
According to Parker, Season 1 is just the first test of how his series can transform what an installment in the franchise can be. “I like that we’re inching it forward just a little bit. ‘Game of Thrones’ in 2026,” he says. “Every now and then, when something is right, we’re going to try it and see if we feel like it works.”
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