Beatles Song in Mad Men Cost An Arm and a Leg

May 7, 2012

I just got done watching Sunday night’s “Mad Men” ep. #8 ‘Lady Lazarus’ today at lunch, and I could see the ending coming before it happened, which isn’t typical because it’s not a predictable show in my opinion.

I loved the episode, but a bigger question I had at the ending of the show, over-rode and trumped everything I just watched- all because of the audio that Mad Men’s producers decided to use in the ending. I was thinking: ‘How much money did the producers pay for that track!?’

After watching the ending where band “The Beatles” are involved, I could just smell the money that had to be paid to ‘use’ them. *Spoiler Alert* from here on out guys!

Anyway, last night’s episode #8, had a great ending, wrapping the show up with Megan giving Don Draper a Beatles record, just before leaving to her new acting class.

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I knew in that moment when she handed Draper the record, and then thinking about what happened earlier in the show when Draper’s client wanted to use a Beatles knock-off song because an actual real Beatles song was too expensive (and always will be), that’s when I knew Mad Men’s producers coughed up a bunch of money to play a real Beatles song! I was right- Draper put the record on, the song “Tomorrow Never Knows” plays, and a montage of scenes plays during the song. The song plays for a good while, and the excitement of Mad Men getting the rights to use the song gave me chills. I loved that they paid for an expensive Beatles song, and I loved the montage clips coinciding with the song so perfectly.I’ve always heard that it was expensive to get rights to use a Beatles song in a production, and I was right! According to Forbes, the song cost somwhere in the six-figure range. Forbes writer Jeff Bercovici writes, “Between licensing the publishing rights from Sony ATV Publishing and the rights to the master held by EMI, sources estimate Lionsgate spent somewhere in the six-figure range. One knowledgeable source puts the combined sum at around $250,000.”