How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) – The Black Keys

Lore & Background

The Black Keys built their reputation on a deliberately lo-fi, blues-drenched sound that rejects studio polish in favor of feel. Auerbach's slide guitar and Carney's driving, almost tribal drumming create a groove that feels like a porch light flickering in a July thunderstorm—warm on the surface, but with a crackle of electricity underneath. "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" leans into that duality: the title promises romance, but the delivery is rough, urgent, almost confrontational, as if the singer is convincing himself line by line.

In *Justified*, that tension between sweetness and menace is the show's emotional engine. Harlan County is painted in sun-bleached greens and red clay, but the characters orbit each other with the coiled energy of a .357. When a track like this one drops over a scene, it reframes the geography: the same back roads that a fugitive uses to disappear become the roads a couple drives home on, and the music lets the audience feel both readings at once. The Black Keys' sound, with its minimal instrumentation and forward momentum, mirrors the show's pacing—no wasted notes, no lingering, just the next beat arriving like the next bullet.

The pairing also reflects the show's broader musical philosophy. Rather than relying solely on a traditional composed score, the show blended original music by Steve Porcaro and others with a rotating cast of blues, rock, and Americana artists whose catalogues already carried the emotional weight the scenes needed. The Black Keys, with their roots in Ohio garage rock and a deep well of Delta-influenced phrasing, fit that palette without ever sounding like background music. They sound like they belong on a porch in Harlan County, which is exactly the point.

In Their Own Story

The porch light buzzes. Raylan sets his coffee mug down on the warped board, the ceramic clink swallowed by the hum of the cicadas. Across the yard, the gravel road is empty except for the long shadow the oak throws in the late August sun. He doesn't reach for the phone on the counter. He doesn't reach for the gun in the drawer. For three seconds, the world is just heat and the smell of cut grass and the distant thump of a guitar amp from a neighbor's garage, playing something slow and sweet and almost too gentle for a man who has spent the morning watching a man run. He exhales. The cicadas take back the silence. The mug is still warm in his hand, and that is enough, for now, to keep him from driving back to the road.

Reader's Guide

Track: "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" · Artist: The Black Keys · Placement: appears as non-diegetic underscore in *Justified*, landing over a scene where the show's usual kinetic tension briefly softens into something almost domestic—a character pausing, a kitchen going quiet, a road stretching out with no chase in sight. The song works because its title promises tenderness while its delivery stays rough and urgent, mirroring the show's core contradiction: these are people who love each other and also point guns at each other. Auerbach's slide guitar and Carney's driving beat give the moment forward momentum without resolving it, so the audience feels the sweetness and the threat simultaneously. This is emblematic of *Justified*'s overall sonic identity: sparse, twangy, slightly menacing. Where most TV dramas layer orchestral swells or electronic pulses to signal emotion, this show trusts a two-piece band playing through a cheap amp to carry the same weight. The result is a soundtrack that feels diegetic even when it is not—as if the music is coming from the next porch over, from a radio in a parked truck, from the bones of the Ozarks themselves. It never tells you how to feel; it just keeps the beat going while you figure it out. That restraint is what separates the show's musical world from the typical television score, and tracks like this one are where the philosophy lands hardest.

Did You Know?

• The Black Keys are a two-piece—guitar/vocals and drums—which means every note on the track is played by exactly two people, giving the song a raw, unlayered intimacy that suits the show's lean storytelling.
• The song comes from *Attack & Release* (2008), an album recorded in a small studio in Nashville, placing its sound geographically close to the Harlan County setting of *Justified*.
• The song is a cover of the 1964 Marvin Gaye hit, originally written by the legendary Motown songwriting team Holland–Dozier–Holland.
• *Justified* did feature a traditional composed score by Steve Porcaro and others, alongside its curated song selections.