Here’s the Lowdown on That ‘Echo’ Opening Credits Banger
All five episodes of Echo are out on Disney+ and Hulu, and the series boasts a killer plot—plus a great soundtrack.
One standout song is the opening credits song, “Burning.” If you feel like you’ve heard that song before, you’re not wrong. Here’s the lowdown on the banger that plays over Echo‘s opening credits.
Echo follows Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) in the aftermath of her attempt to take out crime lord Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). As Maya wages war with Fisk’s remaining forces, a mission objective takes her home to Oklahoma, where she’s confronted by the family she left behind.
What is the song that plays over the opening credits in Echo?
The song that kicks off each Echo episode is “Burning” by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, released in 2022 on their album Cool It Down. With a musical nod to soul classics of the ’60s, the song expresses the singer’s desire to escape a world that’s burning: “Like the River Styx I’ll flow, flow, flow … into the sea, out of fire.”
In a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone, lead singer Karen O explained that the song was inspired by a fire in her home that miraculously left her sketchbooks and family photos unscathed. “If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life,” O said. “‘Burning’ is a song about that feeling, smoke signals for the soul. Begging to cool it down, just doing it the best we know how.”
How does “Burning” tie into the themes of Echo?
Why is “Burning” such a great song for Echo‘s opening credits? It’s not just that it’s a joy to listen to. You can hear hints of Maya’s story in the lyrics.
In one verse, O sings, “Well, I’ll release her/From the bindings of her teachers/What they’re hiding there is broke, broke, broke.” If that verse doesn’t describe Maya’s relationship with her family, then I don’t know what does. Maya has spent most of her life under Kingpin’s tutelage, wrapped up in the crime world that her father was ultimately unable to escape. She avoids seeing her real family, instead focusing her attention on getting revenge on Fisk and his criminal empire. However, her family keeps stubbornly showing up for her. Maya carries a lot of anger and pain with her, and what she struggles to understand is that anger like that needs to be quenched, not fueled.
All five episodes of Echo are now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
(featured image: Disney+)
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