Hank Williams’ ‘Alone And Forsaken’ Soundtracks Trailer For HBO’s ‘The Last Of Us’

Country music legend Hank Williams’ classic song, “Alone And Forsaken” features in the trailer for HBO’s highly anticipated The Last of Us TV series, which gives fans their first look at the adaptation of the popular, post-apocalyptic video game.  The show premieres in 2023 and you can watch the trailer below.

Just like the PlayStation video game, The Last of Us series follows a hardened survivor named Joel, played by The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal, as he journeys across a United States decimated by a deadly disease called the cordyceps fungus. Along the way, he travels with a young girl named Ellie, played by Game of Thrones alum Bella Ramsey, who plays a crucial part is finding a cure for the zombie-like plague that has destroyed society.

The trailer reveal came on September 26, which is nicknamed Outbreak Day in ‘The Last of Us’ community. In the original video game, the cordyceps fungus first began spreading around the U.S. on Sept. 26. In the trailer, “Alone and Forsaken,” soundtracks key moments from ‘The Last of Us’ video game, such as Joel and Ellie escaping a quarantine zone, two collapsing skyscrapers they must traverse, Ellie riding a merry-go-round with her childhood friend Riley and Joel running with his daughter Sarah at the onset of the pandemic.

In addition to Pascal and Ramsey, the cast includes Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy; Merle Dandridge as Marlene, the leader of the rebel group the Fireflies; Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah, Murray Bartlett as Frank; Nick Offerman as Bill; Jeffrey Pierce as Perry; and Anna Torv as Tess. Voice actors Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, who played Joel and Ellie in the video games, will also appear in the show in undisclosed roles.

Neil Druckmann, co-president of video game studio Naughty Dog, serves as co-creator, executive producer alongside Craig Mazin, the Emmy-winning creator of Chernobyl. Carolyn Strauss, Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan and Rose Lam are executive producers. Kantemir Balagov, Jasmila Žbanić, Ali Abbasi, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb and Liza Johnson are directors. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, and PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint and Naughty Dog produce.

Now regarded as a standard, “Alone and Forsaken” was written and demoed (though never officially released at the time) by Hank Williams. It has been since covered by many artists.

Williams’ recording of the song was taken from one of his performances on the Shreveport radio station KWKH between August 1948 and May 1949. MGM released it in 1955, over two years after Williams’ death. The song features only Williams’ vocals and acoustic guitar and it explores themes of loneliness and desolation, which he had written about on previous ballads like “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”.

Listen to the best of Hank Williams on Apple Music and Spotify.