Since it’s conception at the tail end of the 2010s, indie rocker Ezra Furman has been co-creating the music for Netflix’s Sex Education. Today, Furman has released a five-song EP of songs from the show’s third season.
“The release of this show feels like a triumph,” Furman explains. “There were so many obstacles to making art during the pandemic. Nonetheless, my three bandmates and I found a way, in late summer 2020, to collaborate with Oli and the Sex Education team, partly in person and partly across long distances, to play a small part in making another season of a great, original and vital TV show. I’m proud of this music and I feel so lucky to be involved in Sex Education. Now let’s all watch and root for the queers.”
Sex Education is forthcoming in its depiction of sexual intimacy, gender identity, and young growth. Furman, who recently came out as a transgender woman, creates songs for the show that fit perfectly within these themes.
As is Ezra’s style, the tracks are alternately fuzzy rockers and folky strummed acoustic songs. Furman’s razor-sharp wit and vivid imagery remain thankfully intact from her past work as well. But the EP channels Furman’s past in more ways than one.
The EP features two songs from Furman’s former band Ezra Furman & the Harpoons, both of which are pulled from the group’s final LP Mysterious Power. The album’s title track, plus the song ‘Don’t Turn Your Back on Love’, are retained in their classic recordings from over a decade ago.
It’s fascinating to hear Furman recite lines like “God I am nothing but a boy in my room/But when I stand at the windowsill I look at the moon and I know/Something is rising to another dimension/Going out of my mind way across the midwestern expanses” considering all that she’s been through since originally recording those words.
Season three of Sex Education is being released to Netflix’s library today, and the EP is dropping in conjunction with it. A little bit of show-song synergy, I suppose.
Check out the Sex Education: Songs from Season 3 EP down below.