Netflix's Lucifer Musical Episode Could Not Use This Song

Netflix's Lucifer musical was missing one song. The episode, titled "Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam," was included in the second half of Lucifer's fifth and penultimate season that debuted on Friday. While the episode featured a varied and exciting tracklist, there was one song the creators planned to use but were not allowed. Lucifer showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Madrovich tell The Wrap that they couldn't obtain approval for the song "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens. The episode would have used it for the final duet between Lucifer (Tom Ellis) and God (Dennis Haysbert). Tom Ellis came up with the replacement song in a pinch: "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables.

"We first had 'Father and Son' by Cat Stevens in our heads for that final scene," Modrovich said. "You know, I totally respect him and his team, because I think a lot of people feel this way about their music, but it is a song for so many different people and it evokes so many different things for people, that you don't want to narrow it to one image or experience. I think that that's how he felt. I think he was like, 'Look, it's such a song that speaks to so many people. I kind of want to keep it in that big place of everybody relates to it.' So then we went after the 'Les Mis' song. I remember Tom called me up and played it; he'd just learned it on the guitar. I kept thinking, oh my God, there are so many fans who would freak out if Tom just called them and got on the guitar for them. I cried the first time I heard him do it. I was like, this is the song. It just became the one I wanted more than anything."

Henderson and Modrovich agree that the song swap was ultimately a case of necessity and limitations helping to improve the final product. Filming the scene with Haysbert proved an emotional process for Ellis.

"That scene with Dennis at the end — one thing I would say about music and what music means to me, and what singing means to me, is that it's like a shortcut to emotion and a shortcut to stuff that's there that might not come out as easily, had I not been singing it," Ellis said. "It's not necessarily that it was in the words that we were singing, but it was certainly in the emotion that we were singing. That night we shot that scene, Dennis and I, the song just really fed into that. I remember doing the rehearsal with Dennis that night. Both of us were just a mess. We were both just sobbing. And both as dads in real life, and with father-son relationships, there was so much that we could draw on from our own experiences. But also just, you know, my experience of working with Dennis on the show was, he had — and still has, because we're really good mates now — this kind of paternal quality."

What did you think of Lucifer's musical episode? Let us know in the comments. Lucifer Season 5 is now streaming on Netflix.