Season 2 of The Deuce not only has new faces, the theme song is now updated for the 1977 setting to feature more shots of the porn movie business, discos and other late-Seventies imagery. They are now accompanied by a brand new version of Elvis Costellos This Years Girl made especially for the show. It combines Costellos vocals from the original 1978 version with new vocals by Natalie Bergman from the band Wild Belle, to turn it into a decades-spanning duet with a faster beat.
Elvis and his producer Sebastian Krys got hold of the original multitrack master tapes so that we could take the song apart and reconstruct it as a male/female duet, Blake Leyh, the shows music supervisor, tells Rolling Stone. We tried quite a few different approaches to the duet, using different singers and different edits of the song. Sebastian had worked with Natalie before and suggested her as someone who could hold her own against Elvis original vocal, and when we combined their voices the idea worked.
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Costello explained in his 2016 book,Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink,that the song was an answer song to the Rolling Stones Stupid Girl and the lyrics can be brutal, especially as sung by Bergman. You want her broken with her mouth wide open cause shes this years girl, which is one reason the song works for a show about the objectification of women.My lyrics might have been tough on the girl, but, it was full of regret and a little sympathy, Costello wrote. While the Jagger-Richards song seemed to take delight in being heartless and cruel.
Other songs in the Season 2 premiere include: Barry Whites Let the Music Play (Candy enters Club 366), Terry Weiss Hold On (Frankie moving through Show World), Talking Heads Dont Worry About the Government (on the radio at Vincent and Abbys apartment), Funkadelics Cosmic Slop (the pimps at the shoeshine stand), Jonathan Richmans Roadrunner (playing on a boom box in the editing suite), Bill Wrights Youre the Only Thing Ive Got Going For Me (cops and pimps eating at Leons), LMS Magia De Tu Amor (Vincent talking to a bookie about Frankie), Lloyd Williams Black Mans Train (the Hi-Hat preps for opening), Televisions Prove It (on the Hi-Hat jukebox), Them Twos Am I A Good Man (Vincent eats at Leons), Zeuss Take a Ride (Darlene and Abby talk at the Hi-Hat), Giorgio Moroders From Here to Eternity (Vincent visits Pauls bar), The Damneds New Rose (the punk band performing at the Hi-Hat), Gentles Bionic Lover (Paul and Kenneth make plans), Bricks Dazz (playing at Club 366), Rhythm Heritages Theme FromS.W.A.T. (at 366), Ray Sommers Orhcestras All My Life (at 366), Just Waters The Devil Woman (Tommy takes Vincent to Hodas peep show) and New Dawns Dark Thoughts (Vince and Abby back home again).