« Lovecraft Country » Episode 9 ended with the song « Tulsa, 1921: Don’t Catch the Fire, » a new composition inspired by Sonia Sanchez’s poem.
Lovecraft Country, though it is ostensibly a sci-fi/horror/fantasy show, has never been afraid to incorporate highbrow cultural elements into its melting pot of ideas. As far back as Episode 2, the show has used poetry, with that installment featuring on its soundtrack a Gil Scott Heron poem that gave the episode its name, « Whitey’s on the Moon. » In Episode 9, « Rewind 1921, » the HBO show ended with what its soundtrack composer Laura Karpman called, « a requiem, » based on the poem « Catch the Fire, » by poet and Black Arts Movement member Sonia Sanchez. In an L.A. Times piece, Karpman says of the final song, which was titled « Tulsa,1921: Don’t Catch the Fire, » « I think we need a requiem at the end. I want to write a piece of opera. » In the lead up to the song playing in Lovecraft Country, the episode was exploring the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, in which white mobs attacked and destroyed nearly three dozen blocks of what was at the time the wealthiest Black community in the U.
