Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner paid $250,000 in licensing fees to use the Beatles‘ “Tomorrow Never Knows” in last Sunday’s episode of Mad Men, the New York Times reports.
It has become notoriously difficult to license the band’s music for
television, but Weiner felt the high cost was worthwhile because it was
thematically and chronologically consistent with the setting of the
show, which takes place in the mid-Sixties.
“It was always my feeling that the show lacked a certain authenticity
because we never could have an actual master recording of the Beatles
performing,” Weiner told the Times, noting that previously
attempts to license Beatles music on the show had been declined by Apple
Corps. “Not just someone singing their song or a version of their song,
but them, doing a song in the show. It always felt to me like a flaw.
Because they are the band, probably, of the 20th century.”
