Editor's Note: The following contains Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 spoilers. It's about time that Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) caught up with Earth's music scene, and that finally happened in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Whenever Marvel's scrappiest heroes are onscreen, great music usually follows, and this time we got hits from many other decades, not just the 60s and 70s. James Gunn's curatorship never fails, and the songs he picks usually relate directly to what happens in the plot, being impossible to separate music and movie. In Vol. 3, his mix is once again awesome, but one song, in particular, will be remembered as the perfect one to crown, and cap, the whole movie: Florence + The Machine's "Dog Days Are Over".
Building the perfect needle drop can't be easy, we imagine anyone who has ever made a playlist for someone else knows the struggle at least a little. Now imagine that while also needing to have the song in sync with a whole scene and context of a movie. Not so easy, right? That's why we leave it to the pros, and James Gunn has shown us time and again that's his case. In the last sequence of Vol. 3, we see the former Guardians moving on with their lives to the sound of "Dog Days Are Over", a song that says a lot about the team's moment... Or former team?
'Dog Days Are Over'... But the Raccoon Ones Are Just Beginning
Anyone who was of age at the beginning of the 2010s knows the lyrics to "Dog Days Are Over" by heart. Written and performed by Florence Welch and her band, this song was simply inescapable back then. Any radio you tuned in to (by the way, remember radio?), any party you went to, any simple social gathering... It was everywhere, and we'd sing it at the top of our lungs - although perhaps not as powerfully and certainly not as in tune as Florence herself.
The song plays in the very last sequence of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 after the Guardians decide to partially disband. Quill goes back to Earth to be with his elderly grandfather, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) goes off with her Abilisks on a self-discovery journey, Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Drax (Dave Bautista) stay on Knowhere running the place, and Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) returns to life as a Ravager. A new iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy is born, led by Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel), but that's for the future. Right now, what's important is the catharsis the classic formation feels knowing their adventures together are over.
Rocket opens his Zune, a farewell gift from Quill, and "Dog Days Are Over" starts playing on Knowhere's sound system. It starts just with a harp, which is joined by Florence's voice seconds later. This gentle start sounds almost like the heralding of a new era for the classic Guardians, as they go off to find their own truths throughout the galaxy. Still, this is not a sad moment, it's as happy as can be, and that's what Florence is singing about — the song's female protagonist having a serendipitous encounter with happiness all of a sudden. The Guardians have been through their last adventure together, so that's a moment for celebration.
The lyrics are also completely in sync with the current emotional states of many members of the team. Quill, for example, takes Mantis' advice and understands it's time to "learn to swim" instead of jumping from adventure to adventure, so he goes back to his grandpa on Earth. "Run fast for your mother, run fast for your mother/Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers/Leave all your loving and longing behind/You can't carry it with you if you want to survive," Florence sings, and that's what he is doing. Mantis too, but in her own way. They are not running from anything, but towards growing as people. Here, running is a metaphor for freedom and fulfillment.
Of course, "dog days" gives the impression that the Guardians' times together may have been bad, but it was exactly the opposite, actually. What they've all been through together is the hustle of growing up, and that's what the lyrics are about. They all started off as reckless small-time thieves or assassins, working for supervillains, and only started growing up when they formed the Guardians. They all became mercenaries, going from planet to planet doing dangerous jobs to protect people, even saving the universe for free a couple of times along the way, too. The "dog days" for them are definitely over now, but, as Rocket is the leader of the new Guardians, the raccoon days are just beginning.
'Guardians of the Galaxy 3's Awesome Mix Vol. 3 Perfectly Aligns With the Film's Story
At the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Kraglin (Sean Gunn) gives Quill a Zune, a highly advanced Earth musical device that allows the user to upload thousands of songs in its memory. Nowadays, we know Zune was a commercial flop, but, for Quill, it was a huge improvement from the cassette tapes his mother left him. Also, after being on Earth a few times, he surely caught up with some new music, so that's how Florence + the Machine likely ended up on his MP3 player — we can't wait to see him discover streaming, though.
But this new mix of awesomeness crafted by James Gunn for Vol. 3 is also completely aligned with the characters' moments. "Dog Days Are Over", for example, is an interesting counterpoint to the very first song we hear in Vol. 3, which is "Creep" by Radiohead. It's a pretty sad moment, as we've just seen a baby raccoon get experimented on and immediately make the connection that it was, in fact, Rocket's origin story. He's always felt like a creep, a weirdo, who didn't know what he was doing and felt like he didn't belong. In the very first Guardians movie, he even says he "didn't ask to get made" after a fight with Drax.
As Vol. 3 goes on, though, the songs start to reflect his growth and acceptance of his own condition. He's special, and what makes him so isn't the experiments the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) performed on him to make him super intelligent or whatever. It's literally the friends he made along the way, especially the two bands of misfits he was part of: his friends in the villain's lab and the Guardians themselves. When he, Quill, and Groot leave the Bowie to storm the High Evolutionary's ship, the song that's playing is "This Is The Day" by The The, and the lyrics are exactly about how the singer was revisiting old memories and came to terms with his past and allowed himself to live freely. That's literally the day Rocket's life has surely changed.
The end credits come with a final surprise, and maybe even a piece of advice, in the form of Bruce Springsteen's "Badlands" (yours truly's favorite song by The Boss, by the way). Most of us don't have a cathartic moment of self-acceptance and can't go on journeys of self-discovery as we wanted, so we must follow a different path to better know ourselves, the ordinary path we take every day when we get up in the morning and go to sleep at night. "You gotta live it every day," and, while it may be hard, that's the way it's supposed to be, really. "Keep pushing 'til it's understood, and these badlands start treating us good." We can't do much more than that, really, and this song may even be about James Gunn's own trajectory after being through hell and coming up on top now. He kept pushing it just like the song tells to. For us, it's exactly the same.