It’s a soulful, soft, imperative kind of song, which celebrates both extremes and subtleties across the passage of two lines (like “From Samaritan to sin/ And it’s waiting on the air”).
Perhaps it’s merely that the song is clearly stunning, on first and subsequent listens. What, then, is the resonance that those three and a half minutes have acquired? Why would music producers on one of the most successful American dramas in recent history employ and re-employ four times over such a relatively obscure tune in the face of a wealth of adaptable pop songs? Can we even credit the repetition of such a song with meaning to any but the most committed Grey’s or Thirteen Senses fan, given the years which elapse between uses? Loyal viewers, who number in the millions, of the American medical drama Grey’s Anatomy have heard this beginning a remarkable four times over the last twelve years-remarkable, because the song itself only peaked at number 35 in the UK, product of a band which has never even cracked the top ten since the release of their first EP 14 years ago.
So begins the 2004 single ‘Into the Fire’, by Cornish indie-rock quartet Thirteen Senses. A punctuated set of piano chords, the sharp injection of an electric guitar, before the music retreats just a little, and a husky male soloist implores: “Come on, come on/ Put your hands into the fire”.
