The musical easter eggs of “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
The Academy Award-winning 2022 film “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is critically acclaimed for many reasons: acting, storyline, costume design and editing. These have all been recognized with award show sweeps and online buzz, according to Variety. But, digging deeper into the tiny details of the film, there exists a plethora of musical elements that might have gone unseen upon first watch. Warning: this article will contain spoilers for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” is a fast-paced action movie that follows laundromat owner and Chinese immigrant Evelyn Wang, played by Michelle Yeoh, as she is suddenly caught up in a multiversal battle to save the universe. While the film appears to be an action-packed adventure at first, a touching story of familial love between mother and daughter as well as wife and husband begins to unfold.
The band responsible for the movie’s award-winning score, Son Lux, consists of members Ryan Lott, Ian Chang and Rafiq Bhatia. The band was scouted by directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (affectionately known as “the Daniels”) specifically because of the work they produced together as Son Lux.
Their music evades the label of a specific genre, which is what piqued the interest of the Daniels: Bhatia described Son Lux’s sound as “a lot of disparate seeming elements into something that feels cohesive,” in an interview with Slash Film.
This cohesion is essential for tying together the multiple universes portrayed in the film, creating the feeling that, although they are depictions of different timelines altogether, each universe is still intimately connected and essential to the heart of the story.
In the same interview Bhatia revealed that, when creating the scores, Son Lux was careful to craft a different sonic identity for every universe so that audiences would easily be able to distinguish between each of them — like changing channels.
The challenge, then, was to sonically connect these separate universes in a way that made sense and packed an emotional punch. The answer to this demand, Lott said, was to create smaller, simple themes for each universe rather than one big, overlying musical theme.
Scaling down allowed Son Lux to garner a sense of unity within the overall score of the film and eventually become nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, according to Pitchfork.
The idea of unity borne of variation appeared within the film once again in an unexpected way. A multiversal version temporarily possessing the body of Evelyn’s husband, Waymond Wang, recites a line that might sound familiar to audiences as he explained the concept of the multiverse to Evelyn: “Your clothes never wear as well the next day / and your hair never falls in quite the same way.”
Kwan revealed that he wrote this line in the original script, unknowingly plagiarizing the lyrics of the popular 2000s one-hit-wonder by Nine Days “Absolutely (Story of a Girl).”
“The words just came out of my fingers, not knowing where they come from,” Kwan said in an interview with Mashable. “The muses were filling my body … and I was like, ‘Ooh, that feels good. But I definitely stole that from somewhere, and I don’t remember where.’”
Although the Daniels tried to rewrite the line and even debated over striking it from the script altogether, the lyrics stuck.
Fans might have made the connection between the lyrics of “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” and the character arc of Jobu Tupaki, the alter ego of Evelyn’s daughter Joy, who is played by Stephanie Hsu.
The iconic lyrics, “this is the story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world / and while she looks so sad in photographs / I absolutely love her when she smiles,” almost directly parallels the mother-daughter journey of healing on which Evelyn and Joy embark.
The Daniels eventually reached out to John Hampson, the lead singer of Nine Days, who offered his fervent consent and support. Hampson took his support a step further when he fleshed out three new versions of the song for the Daniels to use in various parts of the film, each version pertaining to a different universe.
“Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” ended up appearing a total of four times throughout the film: the line that Ke Huy Quan speaks as Waymond Wang; a country ballad version played on the RV radio as Waymond serves Evelyn divorce papers; a chef version that plays in a hibachi restaurant where multiversal Evelyn works; and, finally, a BDSM version that plays as dominatrix Evelyn exits a secret sex room.
Chef Evelyn’s hibachi restaurant boasts not one, but two original songs written for this universe. The nemesis of Chef Evelyn, a hibachi chef with a suspiciously tall hat, is revealed to be harboring a cooking raccoon. Raccaccoonie, as Evelyn calls him, is voiced by none other than Randy Newman, according to Slash Film, with whom Lott was able to record a duet titled, “Now We’re Cookin’.”
After the Daniels sent the film to Newman, and his wife was delighted with it, he agreed to act for the small part. He recorded many adlibs for the small creature, not all of which the Daniels were able to use, but many were sneakily slipped into the movie whenever the raccoon is on screen.
One iteration of Evelyn depicts her life as an opera singer, showcasing a glimpse into a lavish would-be life and featuring a showstopping performance. The voice of opera singer Evelyn belongs to Jane Lui, an Asian American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who goes by the stage name Surrija.
As Opera Evelyn, she sings a version of Chinese folk song “好久没到这方来 (Haven’t Been Here in So Long)” written by Son Lux and arranged by Rob Moose, which they titled “Opera Fight.”
Other star-studded features include rapper and producer André 3000 playing the flute on the song “My Life Without You,” as well as Rob Moose featuring on “I Have Been Watching.” Moose is known for making the Copycat Killer Versions with Phoebe Bridgers as well as performing “Moon Song” with her on the Jimmy Kimmel Live Show.
“This is a Life” by Son Lux, Mitski and David Byrne was nominated for Best Original Song award in the 2023 Academy Awards. This is the first and only Academy Award nomination for Asian American singer-songwriter Mitski, and the second nomination for Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. Byrne, along with Broadway alum Stephanie Hsu, performed the song live at the 2023 Oscars.
Some fans might argue that the heart of the entire movie lies within Stephanie Hsu’s performance as Joy/Jobu Tupaki, corroborated by her Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Amidst the Oscar buzz surrounding the film, Hsu’s audition tapes started making rounds on the internet, revealing the origin of the song “Sucked into a Bagel,” according to Yahoo. The Daniels were not planning on including such a song, but Hsu’s improvised bagel tune was met with delight and made its way into the final cut.
The commercial success of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” brought action, wonder and familial love to theaters across the world. For fans who are eager to rewatch and look for these extra musical easter eggs, the film is now available on many streaming platforms.
