Normal People Soundtrack: Complete Details and Playlists For the Show

The more emotion-driven a TV series or movie, the more important the soundtrack. And boy is Normal People, the Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s wildly popular novel of the same name, driven by the emotion of its characters and world.

Normal People follows Marianne and Connell’s complicated relationship as they move from being teenagers at a small town in western Ireland into young adulthood at Dublin’s Trinity College, and showrunner Ed Guiney, directors Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald, music supervisors Juliet Martin and Maggie Phillips, and editor Nathan Nugent have done an impressive job crafting the music landscape for this world.

“We were trying all sorts of tracks ourselves,” said Abrahamson, who mentioned Martin, Phillips, Nugent, and himself as the chief collaborators in the process. “So, as well as the work that Stephen Rennicks, the composer, was doing, it was just, again, a very organic kind of collaboration. Juliet and Maggie would be sending track ideas, we’d be trying them and we’d try our own, send them over and say something like this. And just trying to build up a kind of body of music that felt right.”

Abrahamson added that the group unintentionally highlighted some music from Irish artists. (Normal People is an Irish production featuring a mostly Irish cast and crew.)

“I was listening, doing a deep dive, and it turns out that a couple of the things I liked were by Irish artists,” says Abrahamson. “Even, not me trying deliberately to use Irish artists, but it turns out that it just felt right, and so some of the songs and some of the most memorable needle drops in the series are from Irish artists.”

The Sally Rooney novel on which the Hulu/BBC series is based is set in and just after 2008, using the financial crash as a thematically-rich backdrop. While Normal People does use some music that already would have been available at that time, Abrahamson says they played it a fast and loose with the timing.

“We kind of cheated, didn’t we Ed [Guiney, the showrunner/producer]?” says Abrahamson. “I mean, like nominally, this show is set a few years ago, but actually some of the music is a bit more recent than that. But yeah, we were happy enough to fudge that particular rule.”

Here is the complete song list by episode for Normal People…

Normal People Episode 1 Soundtrack

“Hate Dah,” Super Silly

“Dear SJ,” Alex Gough

“Neverending Circles,” Chvrches

“Warped Window,” Anna Mieke

Normal People Episode 2 Soundtrack

“Did It To Myself,” Orla Gartland

“Hide and Seek,” Imogen Heap

“Men Behind the Wire,” The Barleycorn

“Crazy World,” Aslan

“Horn,” Nick Drake

“Angeles,” Elliott Smith

Normal People Episode 3 Soundtrack

“Maybe,” SOAK

“Hey Now (Arty Remix),” London Grammar

“Gimme Life,” THAN and Victoria Liv

“I Never Got Off the Bus,” Tebi Rex

“Disco Inferno,” SUPERfreak

“Hate Dah,” Super Silly

“Havin’ a Party,” Flipside

“Only You,” Yazoo

Normal People Episode 4 Soundtrack

“Atomos XI,” A Winged Victory For the Sullen

“Locked In,” The Lock-In

“Talk About Nothing (Not Your Dope Remix),” Cadre Cola

“Deep Blue,” Mango x MathMan featuring Lisa Hannigan

“You and I,” Caribou

“Drop,” Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions

“Tell Me So,” The Orioles

“Highs and Lows,” August Roads

“Undertow,” Lisa Hannigan

Normal People Episode 5 Soundtrack

“La Lune,” Billie Marten

“Dance 4 Sorrow,” Francis Lung

“Go Wild,” Friedberg

“Nikes,” Frank Ocean

“Skate,” Tycho

“Make You Feel My Love,” Ane Brun

Normal People Episode 6 Soundtrack

“Too Much,” Carly Rae Jepsen

“I’m Happy Without You,” Ann Byers

“Smoke,” Gia Margaret

“It’s Alright,” delush featuring Strange Boy

“I Know,” August Roads

“We Played Some Open Chords And Rejoiced, For The Earth Had Circled The Sun Yet Another Year,” A Winged Victory For The Sullen

Normal People Episode 7 Soundtrack

“It’s OK With Me,” Broadway Express

“Metroma,” The Sei

Normal People Episode 8 Soundtrack

“Dandelion,” Jealous of the Birds

“Love Will Tear Us Apart,” Nerina Pallot

Normal People Episode 9 Soundtrack

“Rare,” Selena Gomez

“Old Bear,” Cloth

“Klangfall,” Joep Beving

“99 Luft Balloons,” Nena

“Groovy Train,” The Farm

“Berlin,” RY X

“Scene Suspended,” Jon Hopkins

Normal People Episode 10 Soundtrack

“Love Really Hurts Without You,” Billy Ocean

“Cannibal Tree,” Yenkee

“Good Times,” Ellie Mae Rose

“Everything I Am is Yours,” Villagers

Normal People Episode 11 Soundtrack

“Breathe,” CamelPhat & Cristoph featuring Jem Cooke

“Strange Weather,” Keren Ann

Normal People Episode 12 Soundtrack

“The Subterranean Heart,” Mount Alaska

“No Such Thing,” Yumi and the Weather

“Dogwood Blossom,” Fionn Regan

“Can’t Move On,” Wild Youth

“Sometimes,” Goldmund