Has any other series on the 2026 TV schedule had a more stellar soundtrack than Ponies? The Peacock spy thriller set in the 1970s takes advantage of a lot of the great music that was out at that time from the likes of Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, Billy Joel and Elton John for all kinds of great needle drop moments that have us wanting to dust up all the great records from the era. So, when CinemaBlend spoke to the show’s creators, they told us about making these moments happen, and specifically explained the one request Elton John had in regard to it. SPOILERS ahead.
How Elton John Became Such A Big Part Of Ponies, Per The Creators
Elton John has a big part in Ponies because the finale takes place during a fictional concert of his in Moscow in 1977 (though he did tour in the Soviet Union in 1979). Ponies creator David Iserson told us about what happened when they contacted John’s team to involve the icon in the series. In his words:
Elton John, of course, became such a big part of the season as we were building it. And so, to be able to use a few Elton John songs was also very exciting. Apparently, his team wanted to look at the fake Elton John that we'd cast just to see that we were portraying him, I assume in a way that was favorably, to be able to, license us to ‘Take Me To The Pilot’ and ‘Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me’. I think at that point they'd already agreed to let us use ‘Don't Go Breaking My Heart’. We were in Elton's hands as we finished up our season, but fortunately, they let us use it.
The 78-year-old has done about everything, from reaching EGOT status to writing the music for The Lion King and the 2019 biopic Rocketman depicting his life story. Lucky for Ponies, they were granted the use of three Elton John songs: “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” and the Live From Moscow versions of “Take Me To The Pilot” and “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”.
The only thing that almost stood in their way was the depiction of Elton John in the finale, which ended up being played by unknown actor Alistair Mumford. Things all worked out in their favor, but for a moment, they were in the all-time great artist’s “hands” for approval.
How The Soundtrack Became Central To Ponies
Getting the thumbs up from Elton John is pretty groovy, but during our conversation with the showrunners, they also talked about why the soundtrack was such a big deal to the series. As Iserson explained:
We put together a Spotify playlist, like probably even before we started writing. There was a link to it on the first page of the script as we were trying to sell the show. So it was something that we really wanted to make a big part of the show from the beginning. We name every episode after songs. There is something that I always find to be very transporting about music. And so when we wanted people to be reading these scripts, we wanted them to have these songs in their head as they did it. We wanted them to be able to know what the look and the feel of the show is.
If you’ve binged-watched Ponies like we have, you had to have noticed (and perhaps discovered) all the 1970s hits. I found it super interesting to learn the creators’ process to make the soundtrack an additional main character. As Iserson also added in our interview:
We tried to save our money in different aspects of the show because we really knew that music was gonna be important and we knew that it was going to elevate the show quite a bit. And we were really excited by the kinds of songs that we were able to get. We had some songs in the scripts from the very beginning. Second Hand News, which is the name of the first episode, and the first song in the first episode was a song that felt like a very hard to get because it's Fleetwood Mac and it's from Rumors and it's expensive, but we were able to negotiate for that one. And so, we felt really lucky to be able to use that.
During our chat, the creators talked to us about the possibility of a Season 2 renewal as well. Should it happen, we’d look forward to even more great needle drops. You can check out the full Ponies soundtrack on Spotify right now.
