'Child in Time': Deep Purple's song on the Stranger Things 5 trailer explained

17 July 2025, 12:31

Watch the trailer for Stranger Things Season 5

By Mayer Nissim

Stranger Things features a massive slab of classic hard rock in the trailer for the long awaited final season.

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Stranger Things has a reputation for making excellent use of music, not just to establish the drama in its 1980s setting, but also for picking just the right song to bring the energy and emotion.

Whether it's Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' or Limahl's 'Never Ending Story', it has brought classic numbers to a whole new audience, and it looks like it's about to repeat the trick with a heavy slab of British hard rock.

The new teaser trailer for Stranger Things 5 – the finale for the sci-fi period drama – is soundtracked by Deep Purple's 1970 track 'Child in Time'.

As with some previous songs used on the show and its promos, the song has been heavily remixed.

It's not the first time Stranger Things has deployed a heavy rock song, of course, with the previous season making excellent use of Metallica's 'Master of Puppets'.

Deep Purple in concert in 1973. Picture: Alamy

Recorded on December 4, 1969 at IBC Studios, London, the original version of 'Child in Time' clocks in at an epic ten minutes and 18 seconds.

The song featured on the Deep Purple in Rock album, released in June 1970, closing out side one of the record. Not released as a single in the UK, the song charted in several countries in continental Europe on its release there in 1972.

Written soon after Ian Gillan joined the band as a replacement for founding member Rod Evans, the band got the song together at Hanwell Community Centre.

It emerged when keyboard player Jon Lord played the introduction to It's a Beautiful Day's 'Bombay Calling' during the practice.

Deep Purple - Child In Time - Live (1970)

"It sounded good, and we thought we'd play around with it, change it a bit and do something new keeping that as a base," Gillan told the Mid-Day Newspaper in 2002.

"But then, I had never heard the original 'Bombay Calling'. So we created this song using the Cold War as the theme, and wrote the lines 'Sweet child in time, you'll see the line.' That's how the lyrical side came in.

"Then, Jon had the keyboard parts ready and Ritchie [Blackmore] had the guitar parts ready. The song basically reflected the mood of the moment, and that's why it became so popular."

He added on his own website: "I started singing and the words came easily because we were all aware of the nuclear threat which hovered over us at this time which was probably when the 'cold war' was at it's hottest.

Deep Purple - Child in Time (1972 European single release). Picture: Alamy

"Through the medium of Radio Free Europe this song and many others reached the ears and hearts of like minded people behind the 'Iron Curtain' and as I found out many years later, it was of a great comfort to them when they understood that there were some peace loving friends out there somewhere."

Louder quotes Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore as saying: "Ian did a remarkable job, a brilliant job of his falsettos, where he went up in steps. And he did about two takes in the studio.

"Mind you, he was being very naughty under the piano with a woman at the same time he was singing, so maybe he was inspired by that, I don’t know.

"He came in and heard it, and said, 'I want to change it, I want to do better'. We said, 'No, you’re done a brilliant job, let‘s put it out like that'.

Ian Gillan Band 'Child In Time' - Live At The Rainbow 1977

"And Jon and I made sure he didn't change it. It was just wonderful how he did that."

After being debuted in concert that summer, 'Child in Time' was performed at the Royal Albert Hall during the September 1969 concert that would spawn the Concerto for Group and Orchestra album.

While the album came out a few months later, the recording of that song remained unreleased till the 2002 reissue.

The song became a regular fixture of the band's live shows, and later gave its title to the Ian Gillan Band's debut album in 1976. Deep Purple played the song less and less over the years due to Gillan's advancing years and the strain it took on his voice, and retired the song for good in 2002.

Max’s Song (Full Scene) | Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill | Stranger Things | Netflix

"When I was young, it was effortless," Gillan told RockFM in 2022 "So we got to the point when I got to about 38 years old, and it just didn’t sound right. So I thought, 'Better not to do it badly; better not to do it'."

Stranger Things is not the first bit of visual media to prominently use 'Child in Time'. The song featured in the 1996 disaster movie Twister, the 2022 Netflix series 1899 and in the final sequence of 1999 Kevin Macdonald documentary One Day in September.

Those wanting to see if the song is used in the series itself will have to wait a little while.

Stranger Things returns to Netflix for its fifth and final season later this year, with its first four episodes released on November 26, a further three episodes to follow at Christmas, and the finale on New Year's Eve.