In 1997, a team of psychologists at State University of New York gathered a group of men and women into a room and paired them off into couples. They then asked the couples – complete strangers to one another – to look into each others eyes in silence for four minutes. The researchers wanted to see if they could create lab conditions that would make strangers quickly bond and form close friendships after just a few minutes. The numbers speak for themselves; two of the couples ended up married. Eye contact is powerful.
So imagine, as a musician, being told that your music would be used to underscore a similar moment between two of the most beloved characters on TV – a presidential candidate (played by Sam Goldwyn) and his campaign advisor (Kerry Washington) who have fallen into an aching, forbidden love.
“Light” was originally created by Jimmy LaValle, founder of the San Diego based electronic music group Album Leaf and released on their album Into the Blue Again. The track has been used in Channel 4’s series of programmes Disarming Britain, The HBO documentary Love, Marilyn & various advertising campaigns.
As music publishers we’ve observed that every year the licensing world sanctions a list of tracks that
perfectly communicate the emotions that really matter to a story (or a product purchase). The creators of those tracks get the good fortune of seeing their work used everywhere. Coldplay’s “Clocks” comes to mind. As does Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.
Our congratulations to Album Leaf for getting on that list in 2012 and being responsible for the track we
think most beautifully expressed “poignant sadness” in 2012.
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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 28,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com. 
