Hidden Gem Country Song From ‘The X-Files’ Will Be Released Thanks To One Fan’s Extraordinary Hustle

Matt Fitzgerald·
COUNTRY MUSICCULTURE
·
X Files Scene
X-Files

A beloved country song that felt more like something of an urban myth from The X-Files TV show blew up recently because of the indefatigable perseverance of X/Twitter warrior “auntie cistamine” (@laurenancona), who embarked upon an odyssey of a quest to figure out the who, what, where, when and why behind the beloved tune.

It really is exhausting to even read through all the hoops jumped through by “AC” as we’ll call her from here on out for brevity’s sake. Everything started with this random musing about the song, which is titled “Staring At The Stars” and comes from the “Dreamland” episode of Season 6:

This literally may be the longest thread you’ll ever read on X/Twitter. Will do my best to summarize it all so that it’s not just a WALL of tweets. One important bit, though: Footage and audio of the song itself:

Is it really that good of a song? KIDDING. I’m sure it is. The harmonies are pretty dope, I will say that. Hard to know without hearing the whole package, properly mixed and all that.

Anyway, AC went through the credits to track down music editor Jeff Charbonneau, a man of some repute.

Apparently AC wasn’t the only one with an undying curiosity about the song in the ensuing years:

Here’s a cool twist: Jeff responded.

Turns out, Jeff couldn’t track down the cue sheets for the music in that “Dreamland” episode. Somebody else did, though:

THEN! A-HA! A breakthrough! Eureka! We now know it was written by Glenn Jordan and Dan Marfisi.

When Rolling Stone picked up this story, Marfisi announced that a lyric video for “Staring At The Stars” is on the way:

This is legit bonkers. What a story, and what an outstanding job by AC to set it all in motion.

And to think: A Shazam fail sparked this entire movement. Maybe Shazam should tighten its wide reach of recognizing tunes. That used to be a fun hunt back in the day. Hearing a song on the radio, not catching the title. Pre-Google, trying to figure out who sang the song and what it was called took some legwork. We’re so spoiled now…

Not that I deny all the conveniences of this SOCIETY that we live in nowadays. It’s great. To be fair, trying to Shazam a song and not having it pop up is an extremely rare occurrence. The only time I can remember it happening to me was during the trailer for A24’s Past Lives, which is a great movie. And I knew it just by seeing the trailer. It was one of those. The dialogue overlapped too much with the part I really dug, starting right on the 15-second mark. It might’ve just been stock score music playing. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop looping this one part of it. Tried to Shazam it many times. Never got a consistent hit.

Sounds odd AF but maybe I’ll go on my own damned-fool idealistic crusade (Star Wars reference, not a shot at AC) to find that song someday. Thank you for the inspiration, AC!

Here’s a fuller-sized video of “Staring At The Stars” as it was first seen in The X-Files.

Stay tuned! The fully-realized song is coming very, very soon:

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