The White Lotus Season 2 Theme Song Is The Banger I Didn't Know I Needed - Why It's So Good, Explained

It's always a nerve-wracking experience watching season 2 of your favorite show and waiting to see if it will deliver or disappoint, but The White Lotus season 2 assuaged my worries early with its head-banging, heart-pounding, club-appropriate theme song to open the series. I caught season 1 of The White Lotus a little late, stumbling upon it while my parents and siblings were already partly through. I was hooked immediately. Even scenes that you generally don't want to watch with your parents weren't enough to distract from how great a story it was.

So when The White Lotus season 2 was announced, I was ready. I've been around the block enough to know now though that an anthology series can be tricky, and when an entirely new cast for season 2 was revealed (save for one notable returning star), I prepared myself for disappointment. How dare I doubt. The White Lotus season 2 was an even better experience than season 1. From the moment I started hearing the ululating voices atop unsettling Renaissance imagery, I knew I, and all the visitors to the White Lotus Taormina, Sicily, were in for a treat.

The White Lotus Season 2 Theme Is An Earworm

"Renaissance" Is One Of The Best Things About The White Lotus Season 2

The White Lotus opening credits join a shortlist of credit sequences that viewers are rarely like to skip. Season 1's, titled "Aloha!", was composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, who scored the whole season. Veer returned for the season 2 opening credits, reworking the season 1 opening to better fit the Italian setting. The song, titled "Renaissance", opens with melodic harps and a woman singing operatically as the camera zooms around Italian Renaissance-style frescoes. Then the ululating starts and the song kicks off into the stratosphere.

Related Aubrey Plaza’s White Lotus Character Somehow Just Got Even Better Two Years After Season 2 Premiered Aubrey Plaza's role as Harper is one of the most memorable parts of The White Lotus season 2, and her performance in the show just got even funnier.

The voice is repeated to form a chorus of chanting vibrations overlaid with a pumping club-like beat that builds and builds as the camera swirls to stranger, but more beautiful paintings. It's a truly affecting piece of music and filmmaking. It's so catchy and absorbing, university professors have seen fit to comment on it. Edward Venn, Professor of Music at Leeds University said about the song (via GQ),

"[It] continually offers up reassuringly familiar ideas, only to pull the rug from out of us and to turn it into something uncomfortable."

He also says,

"It's the way that the initial minor chord moves to the major – offering a sense of hope, of respite – only for it to slide back, continually and unstoppably, to the threatening implications of that minor chord. From the outset the theme is deeply unsettling."

To put Venn's comments short: it's unsettling, and you can't turn it off. The White Lotus is creepy. It's beautiful and hilarious and, occasionally, moving, but the sinister nature of the show is not just under the surface, it's almost welcoming the characters and the audience in with open arms.

It's just that we, like the characters, think we couldn't possibly be in danger. We're too smart, too wily, too in the know, to be cheated on or duped by a new love or killed by a murderous cabal of gays. The theme song reminds us that you might recognize some of the beats of a cautionary tale, but that doesn't mean you're prepared for just how chaotic a story is about to get.

The Season 2 Theme Improves Upon The Season 1 Theme

Season 2 Is Deeper Than Season 1

There are clear musical motifs in "Renaissance" and "Aloha!", some of which are just a function of television. If you want a successful show to last multiple seasons, you need a theme song that people can easily identify as belonging to your show, otherwise they may think it's something completely different. The White Lotus season 2 theme song didn't have to improve on the original as much as it did, however. "Renaissance" improves on "Aloha!" the same way season 2 improves on season 1, it's just simply better in every way.

Season 1 is excellent, but it's an awesome burger compared to a delicately prepared cut of ribeye.

I absolutely love The White Lotus season 1, but the show was famously commissioned by HBO and quickly written by Mike White, not on a whim, but sort of on a whim. The White Lotus season 2 just feels more complete. Bigger, better, and grander. Season 1 is excellent, but it's an awesome burger compared to a delicately prepared cut of ribeye. White just had more time to put his ideas into season 2 and it shows. "Renaissance" reflects this; it's fuller, grander, meaner, and points more toward the direction the season would go.

Composer Cristobal Tapia De Veer's Thoughts On The Theme Song

Veer Sees The Song As Sinister And As A Celebration

Close

Cristobal Tapia de Veer, who composed the anxiety-inducing, melodic, strange, and always beautiful soundtracks for The White Lotus seasons 1 and 2, had a lot to consider when he was deciding on what to do for the season 2 opening theme song. About the music for season 2, Veer said (via Variety),

"It's not like background music. The way they're using the music is that they're really pushing the music as if it was another character in the show."

That "Renaissance" does not appear often beyond the opening credits, but it's so important for setting the mood and is almost like the narration that opens some fairy tale stories. It's not just an opportunity for fancy visuals and a dog whistle for people to come from around the house to sit around the TV. It's a part of the story.

The vocals in "Renaissance" are the work of Colombian Canadian singer Stephanie Osorio.

Veer managed to get the almost Native American-like humming sound by recording Osorio holding a long singular note as she waved a hand in front of her mouth (via BuzzFeed). Veer was then able to repeat the note, pitching it up to levels that a human being could never reach, resulting in the eerie-sounding notes that still feel otherworldly and unnatural. While Veer understands the darker implications of his music, he also insists there is true celebration in it,

"Things can always feel like a celebration. It doesn't matter what's going on. As long as we're here, we can still keep celebrating that we're here."

It sounds uplifting in portions of the song for a reason. As sinister as it is, it's still something worth cheering along to.

The White Lotus Season 2 Theme Has Been Adopted By Pop Culture

Many Memes Have Been Made About The Song

It's not just university professors and Veer who have commented on "Renaissance". When White Lotus season 2 debuted in late 2022, the internet was awash in memes and videos celebrating the banger intro song. TikTok star Taylor Owen (@taylorgraysen), who has 374 thousand followers on the site, posted a video of her and her boyfriend listening to the new theme song. First, they're unsure and confused, but within seconds of the beat picking up, the pair are jumping on the couch and pumping their fists with their eyes closed.

There have been more "subtle" variations of the meme expressing people's love for the song, overlaying it on scenes of Kris Jenner, Britney Spears, or Chris Lilley dancing.

Dominic Fike, who starred in the cast of Euphoria season 2, also got in on the fun, ending one of his sets in December 2022 with a The White Lotus season 2 outro.

These disparate accounts all can't help but be enchanted by The White Lotus season 2's theme song. Pop stars, TikTok veterans, and meme makers all came together through their love of "Renaissance". It helps that just about every second of the song is unique and head-turning. No matter where the song picks up in a video, you know exactly what is being played. It's a testament to the song's power and ubiquity that it can seemingly fit in just about any situation.

Everything About The White Lotus Season 3 Theme

Cristobal Tapia De Veer Is Composing Next Season's Theme

The White Lotus season 3 is coming in February 2025 and one question on my mind is what is the intro theme song going to sound like? We're traveling to the White Lotus Thailand, so I'd certainly expect a more East Asian influence this time around, compared to the island theme of the first season and the Italian-inspired theme of the second. Not much has been announced about the new theme song, but Veer has teased a curious inspiration for the song: cat videos on TikTok (via Variety),

"I hear interesting things in TikTok or YouTube sometimes. I think that the best song I heard in the last few years that I can remember is people harmonizing to a cat on TikTok. There's a cat, and somebody put some piano and then some girls started harmonizing, and then there's all these versions harmonizing this cat, it's super moving and so spontaneous and fresh that this is grabbing a lot more my attention than super-produced pop music."

I'm not sure exactly how harmonizing cats are going to become the new theme song for a hit HBO show, but hey, I didn't create "Renaissance". If the creator of The White Lotus' season 2 theme song says cats are the key, then I'll take his word for it.