‘Girls5eva’ Team Breaks Down Sara Bareilles’ Emotional Season 3 Song ‘The Medium Time’

The team behind “Girls5eva” has gotten used to receiving text demos of songs out of the blue. Series creator Meredith Scardino regularly sends music supervisor (and fellow executive producer) Jeff Richmond and his team voice memos singing her lyrics to the show’s latest absurd songs, like “Home Alone Doorknob” or “Sweet ‘N Low Daddy” .

Towards the end of the season, Sara Bareilles also joins in the fun. It’s a tradition for the Grammy winner, who plays Dawn, to write a song to emotionally punctuate each finale. In Season 1, as Dawn began to realize her own songwriting dreams, Bareilles penned an ode to imperfection with “Four Stars,” and for Season 2, she was behind the powerful anthem “Bend Not Break.”

Deploying Bareilles’ soulful style has always been strategic for the series, which moved to Netflix for season 3 after two seasons on Peacock.

“You want to wrap up the emotion of the entire season in a bow at the end, and I think that’s where we always lean on Sara and her genuine, honest songwriting talents to break that down for us,” Richmond says. Variety.

Bareilles’ home recordings are a little more elaborate when she sends them to the team, which includes co-stars Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps. “I sing all the parts and do all the vocals, and then I text it to the girls, which is always a really fun moment,” Bareilles says.

For her Season 3 song “The Medium Time,” Scardino Bareilles pitched a tune that reflected on the group’s relationship with fame, asking if there’s satisfaction in shooting for the big time and landing somewhere in the middle.

“She came back with this beautiful number, and I was in the Adidas store buying shoes for my son when I got it,” Scardino says. “I opened the file and held it to my ear, and I just started crying in the store because her demo was so beautiful.”

In the final, Girls5eva is on the eve of their biggest show yet at Radio City Music Hall. They booked the famous location on Thanksgiving morning and programmed themselves into a dead zone against Macy’s parade. Dawn in particular struggles with whether the hustle and bustle of this comeback tour has been worth it when she encounters actor Richard Kind, who puts success into perspective.

“We always felt that Richard Kind is the ideal version of what it feels like to be a creative working person,” says Scardino. “There’s a sweet spot where, as he says, ‘you’re constantly working, but not famous enough to be overheard in a deli.'”

She initially considered calling the song “Choose Kindness” or “Be Kind” due to its obvious double meaning. But Bareilles followed her first instincts when writing for the series, and the “medium time” angle captivated her.

“I wish my work felt that free for myself,” says Bareilles. “I’m less heavy when I write for the girls because I’m really in a familiar place and I want to create something that feels like a warm hug. Something that feels like the balm they need right now to just accept where they are in a loving way.”

It’s all in her lyrics: “Grow, trust that time will know / That the middle is the riddle of it all / And the middle time is fine for now.”

Accompanied by Goldsberry, Pell and Philipps around a piano, Bareilles sings the song on stage in an empty hall (except for their families and Child). In a way, “The Medium Time” is just for them, if they want it.

Scarino wanted this moment to feel powerful “because you want to believe in this group and their journey, which has been kind of bananas,” Scarino says. “A song like ‘The Medium Time’ helps you earn the more absurd parts of that journey, and it makes you root for the group even more when you feel like they’re good.”