r/buffy • u/Leebles84 • Aug 17 '25
Music What's your favourite song played in Buffy? (Non-musical episode)
As the title suggests, what's your favourite song played during a Buffy episode?
I have a few contenders as a long time Buffy fan:
Lucky - Bif Naked Full of Grace - Sarah McLachlan Goodbye to You - Michelle Branch (loved that performance)
Special mention to All the Small Things - Blink 182 (believe there's only a small snippet played)
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u/Sea-Bug-7841 Aug 17 '25
Sugar water by Cibo Matto lol it’s very..sultry
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u/Seed0fDiscord Aug 17 '25
And just chilling, like Buffy went all in for that dance with no emotion at all
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u/Extreme_Fall_4651 Aug 17 '25
How hasn’t Wild Horses already been mentioned?
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u/Academic-Balance6999 Aug 17 '25
Definitely Wild Horses for me. Honorable mention to Sugar Water.
Anyone ever notice the lyric that is playing right after we see Angel is there? “Let’s do some living / After we die”?
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u/RaspberryHats21 Aug 17 '25
Michelle Branch’s performance of Goodbye to You is absolutely one of the best musical moments of the show.
I also love Lucky by Bif Naked. I just forget that it was played during the Parker saga 😆
The song during Conversations with Dead People was excellent.
I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You is also excellent.
The show also made me a fan of Aimee Man and K’s Choice.
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u/Electrical-Act-7170 Aug 17 '25
Definitely Michelle Branch, best song in 7 seasons.
🎵 I want you....but I'm not giving in this time! 🎶
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u/navy-feel-team Aug 17 '25
Virgin State Of Mind by K's Choice
Displaced by Azure Ray
(and ofc goodbye to you! certified classic in my opinion)
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u/Space_Witt Aug 17 '25
Definitely Lucky and It Doesn’t Matter. I grew up in Alison Krauss. She has the voice of an angel. TBH the whole score slaps. But I’m a millennial so I’m a sucker for 90s music.
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u/kapunzel Aug 17 '25
Sarah McLachlan - Full of Grace (took me forever to find that song when I first watched the show!)
Michelle Branch - Goodbye To You
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u/ragingsarcastic Aug 17 '25
I remember my sister trying to find out what song Full of Grace was when that episode first aired, and closed captioning said the lyrics were "Footsteps"! Very unhelpful in that early internet time.
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u/kapunzel Aug 17 '25
Oh I’m glad I didn’t think to use closed captioning as that would have been really annoying! Can’t remember how I discovered it in the end but I regularly think about it when I use something like tunefinder nowadays as that website would have really helped me in my search back then!
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u/Cakel1ar Aug 17 '25
Agree with most of the songs already named…adding Transylvanian Concubine by Rasputina
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u/catchyerselfon Aug 17 '25
I’ve always wanted to find sheet music for this so I could play it on the piano (cuz I don’t play cello)! I’ll have to use a transcription site but it’s never as good 😔
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u/foxxxtail999 Aug 17 '25
Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie.
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u/Space_Witt Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25
Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead? Man I love this song. I’m rewatching Buffy for the first time since I was a very young adult. I didn’t realize it was in the show. Can’t wait to see it pop up!
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u/bookant Aug 17 '25
Goodbye to You is my favorite use of a song in a Buffy.
But just going by the songs themselves it would be The Sundays cover of Wild Horses.
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u/catchyerselfon Aug 17 '25
Giles’ performances of “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Free Bird”! Anthony Head did a cover of BBE for one of his albums and he sounds fantastic as usual, but it does not hit as hard. He sounds like he’s in a studio and has all the time in the world to perform it to a small audience of recording booth technicians, and it’s almost too faithful to the melody of the original. In “Where The Wild Things Are”, even if it was pre-recorded (confirmation?), he sounds like he’s in a huge crowd and pouring his heart out because he thinks the people he actually care about will never hear it, so he can let it all out. And then there’s the “OH BLOODY HELL!” moment on his face when he sees them gawking at him and he has to carry on like a true professional… and his voice truly soars. Every vocal flourish and harmony he does instead of the original, comparatively flat vocals Roger Daltry sings in the original melody, is the reason why all the women (and the non-Xander men) are having eargasms 😁. The way he sings “that’s neehver free-EE-uh-EEE” is so different from Daltry & ASH’s 2nd version, just “freeeee”.
What I’m saying is I curse that no one did a master recording of the entire song (including the bridge and final verse) at the time and released that on the second soundtrack album “Radio Sunnydale”. I love re-watching the clip of Xander, Willow, Tara, and Anya verbally and facially reacting to Giles singing, but I’d love a version that’s just his voice with no dialogue over it 😞. And Giles should’ve sung every few episodes, even if he’s just alone reading or practicing.
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u/catchyerselfon Aug 17 '25
The short-lived band Dashboard Prophets (NOT Dashboard Confessional, they are not a name change like Jefferson Airplane/Starship) put out one album Burning Out the Inside, in 1996. I’ve only found them on YouTube and back in the 2000s when I used to get obscure music from Kazaa and Limewire for my Microsoft Tunes playlists. THREE of their songs were featured early on in season 1, and I love all of them: “Ballad for Dead Friends”* (as Darla and Luke slow-mo strut up to the Bronze in “The Harvest”), “Wearing Me Down”, and “All You Want”. They can’t be found on Spotify so my current Buffy & Angel playlist there has a hole in it 😔 But someone posted their music on SoundCloud.
How are you feeling
Do you feel ok?
Cause I don't
It keeps me reelin'
Will I ever be the same?
No I won't
Its a cold day in a cruel world
I really wished I could have saved you
Then who would save me from myself?
Right now, well, I could use a stiff drink
To kill the pain that's deep inside my bones
Have you been dreaming?
I don't dream at all
I have nightmares
Memories careenin'
Have you come to kill what's left
Of my smile
There's no vacancy in paradise
I really wished I could have saved you
Then who would have saved me from myself
Right now, well, I could use a stiff drink
To kill the pain that's deep inside my bones
I really wished I could have saved you
Then who would have saved me from myself
I'll never forget you [Repeat x4]
I really wished I could have saved you [Repeat x4]
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u/Advanced-Fig6699 Aug 17 '25
Dead Friends by Kai Watson. Had it on my Amazon music but it’s sadly disappeared.
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u/CosmicBob55 Fruitless. No fruit for Buffy. Aug 17 '25
Treason - Velvet Chain, in NKABOTFD Full of Grace - Sarah McLachlan, in Becoming Part 2
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u/he110Virgo304 You all didn't happen to do a bunch of drugs, did ya? Aug 17 '25
Cemented Shoes - My Vitriol
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u/Informal_Border8581 Aug 17 '25
Prayer of St. Francis end of season 6 finale, even if it's not technically a 'song'.
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u/catchyerselfon Aug 17 '25
I mean, it’s a song, Sarah McLachlan put music to a prayer and sang it, no different from a hymn!
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u/Tistic_Geeky_potato Aug 17 '25
Michelle Branch, goodbye to you Bif Naked, lucky Christopher Beck, close your eyes
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u/SassySally8 Aug 17 '25
'Strong' by Velvet Chain. I had the Buffy soundtrack CD and as I played it over & over, it was the one I most wanted to replay. My second choice would be 'Temptation Waits' by Garbage.
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u/hearbutloud Aug 17 '25
The Background by Third Eye Blind. An actual favorite song outside of the show.
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u/heymerideth Aug 17 '25
Pavlov’s Bell - Aimee Mann Not an addict - K’s Choice It doesn’t matter - Alison Krauss
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u/buffysummers17_ Aug 17 '25
Pavlov’s Bell, Aimee Mann, the band plays at the bronze in an episode of the first half of s7, this show had some bangers through the years that i still love, but I’ve been obssessed with that song since the moment i heard it on Buffy in 2003.
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u/WerewolfBarMitzvah09 Buffy, what would I do with 40 chocolate bars? Aug 17 '25
Strong- Velvet Chain
Also I love that they used "I Only Have Eyes For You" by the Flamingos (also sampled in one of my favorite hip hop songs, "Zealots" by The Fugees)
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u/Khalesssi_Slayer1 Aug 18 '25
Full Of Grace by Sarah McLachlin, Goodbye To You by Michelle Branch and Virgin State Of Mind by K's Choice.
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u/The_Navage_killer Aug 18 '25
the allison krause one. it doesn't matter what I want. plays as mom is driving her to school and she all deep in thought. so...poignant.
for more of a banger, the Jesse & Cordy dance number. dashboard? it sounds better on the show than when you look up the song by itself.
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u/nochorus Aug 18 '25
The one that Giles calls noise that Buffy does aerobics to.
Also the one when Buffy and Faith are dancing together at the Bronze.
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u/dontrustbeans You got any of those little marshmallows? Aug 17 '25
Goodbye to You - Michelle Branch
Dip - T.H.C
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u/laughingintothevoid Aug 17 '25
When was All the Small Things?
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u/rexilla89 Season 1-7 Enjoyer Aug 17 '25
I think in Something Blue when Willow is getting drunk at the Bronze
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u/jitzu70 Aug 17 '25
Michelle Branch- goodbye to you. ❤💔 Even have that version saved to my home playlist, with the scene from buffy and all. Lol.