Normal People (Original Score from the Television Series)

Editors’ Notes The television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s venerated second novel has been met with much the same adulation. Normal People’s story of Marianne and Connell seems to tap into some kind of emotional nostalgia—for being young, lonely, in love, heartbroken—that readers and viewers have seized upon with abandon. Its score allows listeners in, too. Irish musician and composer Stephen Rennicks responds to a show built on such delicate ground with music that captures the shaky resolve of youthful passions. The ethereal “Much Prettier Girls in School”—which soundtracks Marianne and Connell’s first sexual encounter—is desperately gorgeous and perhaps the soundtrack’s centerpiece, and there are vignettes ready to floor you around every corner. It’s all very spare and tailor-made for a show largely comprising scenes involving a lot of crying or high-stakes intimacy, but Rennicks doesn’t limit himself to the pretty. “Ask Her to the Debs” sounds like a forewarning, “Together Again” captures a contentedness that feels excruciatingly temporary, and “Funeral Dark” is fittingly claustrophobic. Like the book, and like the show, you may need a while to fully recover from Rennicks’ work.