Media and Music: “Sex Education” Wears Its Heart On Its Sleeve With Its Soundtrack
Season two of “Sex Education” creates an effective coming-of-age narrative by embracing intense teenage emotions with its on-the-nose soundtrack.
In Media and Music, our writers take a deep dive into how movies use scores and songs to engage viewers, give new meaning and tone to some of our favorite scenes, and establish themes. It almost goes without saying, but there are spoilers abound.
Written by Annie Lyons
Photos courtesy of Netflix
Content warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault.
The second season of Netflix’s “Sex Education” opens with a bang — literally. Dramatic piano progressions intertwine with shots of sex magazines, a phallic cactus, and angelic light framing morning wood with a halo. What follows is a three minute montage of Otis, the show’s protagonist, masturbating set to a church choir-esque rendition of the 1990 ode to self-pleasure “I Touch Myself” by Divinyls.
The song choice is deliciously dead-on as Otis spends his days hounded by hormones. Lyrics like, “I close my eyes and see you before me / I think I would die if you were to ignore me,” play while Otis bikes to school and gets an erection that forces him to pull off the road and masturbate behind a tree. Whenever Otis has an ill-timed erection in public, like on the school track, there’s a well-timed “Oh no, oh no, oh nooo” as he makes a run for it to find privacy.
Needless to say, the sequence is A Lot, and the operatic cover, performed by Scala & Kolacny Brothers, heightens the intensity of Otis’ feelings about masturbation, ranging from embarrassment to pleasure to just overall horniness. “I Touch Myself” is about longing for an absent lover, but in this scene, it’s recontextualized to epitomize Otis’ relationship with his dick. It’s a fittingly raunchy start to the season. For all its earnest sweetness, “Sex Education” is still a comedy about sex-crazed teens.
Since its first season in 2018, “Sex Education” has gathered a strong fan base quick to praise the show’s frank portrayal of teenage sexuality and relationships. The show also caught attention for the anachronistic aesthetic that defines its setting and soundtrack. “Sex Education” takes place in the fictional British village of Moordale, but the characters have a very Americanized high school experience, right down to the red Solo cup parties. While there’s modern technology, smartphones and social media play a minimal role in the day-to-day lives of Moordale High’s students, and their colorful ‘80s fashion wouldn’t feel out of place in a John Hughes film.
Indie artist Ezra Furman contributed several original songs to the soundtrack, but Furman’s blend of grungy punk and folk pop keep in tune with the pre-1995 hits in the rest of the soundtrack. But every song in the “Sex Education” soundtrack serves a greater purpose than merely fueling nostalgia. The song choices mimic exactly what a character is feeling right at the moment the song is played. This does more than give us a secret look into a character’s head; with a cast as talented as this one, that’s a non-issue. Instead, it validates the intensity of its high school characters' emotions — that classic brand of teenage frustration and obsession. Everything they’re feeling is immediate and consuming, and “Sex Education” lets us know that’s ok.
It’s a little laughable that a song titled “Devil or Angel” (a cover by Furman of the 1956 The Clovers song) plays as Eric considers his two love interests — his former abusive bully turned first-ever hook-up Adam and the sweet French exchange student Rahim. But still, the song reflects Eric’s inner thoughts as he wrestles over which crush to pursue. We’re placed right into his mindset, and the song underscores the depth of his dilemma.
Key moments with each crush follow the same structure. When Eric encounters Rahim for the first time, he spies Rahim sauntering down the hallway as “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Rod Stewart plays. Rahim goes slo-mo, surrounded by admirers. In the fourth episode, Adam takes Eric to a junkyard at night to smash stuff together, and a montage of the boys joyfully breaking vases is set to Furman’s cover of “I Can Change” by LCD Soundsystem. The lyrics “I can change, I can change, I can change / if it helps you fall in love” repeat, mingling together Eric’s hope that Adam is improving with Adam’s own desire to achieve that change.
Season two broadens the scope of the show by dedicating more time to previously minor characters, including sweetpea Aimee (objectively the show’s best character — no criticism of this point will be accepted). In what becomes the season’s most powerful storyline, Aimee is sexually assaulted on her bus ride to school when a man masturbates while pressed behind her and ejaculates onto her leg. She struggles to process what has happened to her: she minimizes the experience when talking with her best friend Maeve, has visions of her assailant, and finds herself unable to board the bus anymore. Her panic surrounding the bus becomes a central point in the season’s arc, demonstrating how forcefully the assault has disrupted her life down to her daily routines.
For instance, in the fifth episode, “Twenty Five Miles” by Edwin Starr plays as Aimee laces up a pair of sneakers and begins the long march to her boyfriend Steve’s house. In an earlier scene, Aimee had complained about how badly her feet hurt from walking to school to avoid taking the bus — now, that frustration is again echoed with the lyrics, “Twenty five miles from home, girl / My feet are hurting mighty bad / Now I’ve been walking for three days / and two lonely nights.” The upbeat swing nature of the song highlights Aimee’s determination to make the walk, but the lyrics reflect the complicated feelings behind her new transportation method. It’s hard not to feel every step she takes — she might as well be going 25 whole miles.
Her anguish reaches a boiling point in the seventh episode. After being in the wrong place at the right time, Aimee, Lily, Maeve, Ola, Olivia and Viv are sentenced to detention with the assignment of finding what unites them — a seemingly impossible task due to the tensions within the group, like Maeve and Ola’s boy-driven rivalry. The group bickers until Aimee bursts into tears, prompting the group to discuss their own histories with sexual assault and harassment and find some solace in their shared experiences.
They then head to the junkyard where Ola leads them in a session of smashing discarded rubbish to physically express their feelings. “Make Your Own Kind Of Music” by Cass Elliot plays triumphantly as they scream and demolish an old car. It’s a moment of exhilarating catharsis, a rejection of the power structures that force women into silence. The message is clear: they’re making their own music, and it’s loud.
In the season’s most poignant moment, Aimee walks up to the bus stop, fully prepared to once again make the long walk to school. But this time, the “Breakfast Club” girls are there waiting for her, and with their solidarity, she boards the bus. The scene is an instant tear-jerker as Aimee gives a tentative, watery-eyed smile, surrounded by the love of fellow women. (Watch this scene, rewatch it, and rewatch it once more — it's impossible not to cry every single time.)
Throughout the scene, “Seventeen” by Sharon Van Etten plays with a quiet strength. The lyrics heard are simple: “I used to be free / I used to be 17 / I used to be 17.” But they at once encapsulate the loss of innocence that Aimee has suffered, harking back to when she told the other girls in detention, “I always felt safe before, and now I don’t.” However, there’s gentle care in Van Etten’s delivery, an appreciation for her younger self and a hope that everything will turn out alright. “Sex Education” doesn’t suggest that Aimee has fully healed after just five neat 45-minute episodes, but it recognizes re-boarding the bus as a key point of progress. Aimee might’ve “used to be free” in a way she isn’t anymore, but she feels freer today than she did the day before, and that’s a victory.
Much of “Sex Education’s” humor stems from the sheer embarrassment of growing up, but the show takes care to never patronize its teenage characters. Season two especially recognizes that thought process of “Everything I am feeling right in this moment matters more than everything else,” but it does so without judgment, instead regarding these intense feelings with compassion. Right down to its soundtrack, “Sex Education” recognizes and validates the power of feeling deeply.