Remember back in 2021 when WandaVision was released on Disney Plus, and we audiences got to bear witness to one of the most profoundly creative examinations of romantic and familial grief that somehow managed to preserve the speculative genre stylings that make superhero fiction so fascinating, while simultaneously threading the daunting metafiction needle with remarkable success?
Well, the reason everybody seemed to love WandaVision was actually just because of a very silly little song called “Agatha All Along” that got so popular Marvel decided to rope it into the marketing campaign of their latest episodic venture of the same name. And so far, it’s a worthy follow-up.
Indeed, Agatha All Along‘s two-episode premiere ensured that this spinoff hit the ground running in all the best ways, but one of the most interesting aspects of this spooky yarn is the way it, perhaps appropriately, roped yet another catchy song into its identity.
The difference between it and “Agatha All Along,” though? This new tune has some true narrative heft.
In a recent music-centric featurette for Agatha All Along, songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez — who composed the theme music for WandaVision and returned to pen the irreverently catchy “The Ballad Of The Witches’ Road” for Agatha All Along — discussed how the tune, sung by Agatha Harkness and her motley crew of witches to summon the portal to the Witches’ Road, isn’t just a summoning spell and your next Spotify obsession; it’s also a prophecy.
“The Witches’ Road” was the ultimate songwriting puzzle for us. It needed to sound like had been passed down through the generations, but we also needed to hide secrets and clues inside the lyrics… It’s both a legend and a map.”
Now, it goes without saying that watching the events of Agatha All Along unfold will be much more fun than theorizing what the lyrics of this song could mean, but we’re going to take a crack at it anyway.
“Darkest hour, wake thy power”
We can likely take this to mean that the witches are going to reach their individual potential when extreme duress rears its head. Although, extreme duress seems to be pretty abundant on the Witches’ Road, and Agatha All Along is a television series and therefore literally relies on tension to operate, so perhaps this is a bit moot.
“Primal night, giveth sight, Familiar by thy side”
Per Empire, we know that Joe Locke referred to his character Billy Kaplan “Teen” as a familiar, and we know that there’s a hex on him that doesn’t allow him to reveal any information about his past or identity. Perhaps the “primal night” refers to an event that will do away with the hex and “giveth sight” on who he really is.
“Where all that’s wrong is right, And all that’s bad is good”
This is likely foreshadowing Agatha’s arc from villain to antihero, or even a full-on hero, depending on how the events of the show play out. We can also read this as Rio Vidal inevitably joining Agatha’s coven down the line, as she’s clearly being played as a sort of antagonist right now, and since “all that’s bad is good,” the most plausible outcome is that she’ll become a powerful ally to a more heroic version of Agatha (this, however, seemed apparent in the trailers and so may also be a moot point).
Those are the interpretations that jump out at us right away, while references to physical objects like gates and paths and shrines probably serve as omens for challenges or milestones that the coven accomplishes on their journey. But again, it’s best not to read too far into it; Agatha All Along has already broken and exceeded our expectations, and we’ll be all too happy if it just keeps on doing that with its incredibly solid storytelling and presentational fundamentals.
Agatha All Along‘s first two episodes are now streaming on Disney Plus, with new episodes released every Wednesday until the two-episode season finale on Oct. 30.
Published: Sep 19, 2024 01:29 pm