A deep dive into Starlight's unabashedly over-the-top, Emmy-nominated power anthem 'Never Truly Vanish' from 'The Boys'

Based on Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic-book series of the same name, and executive produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, "The Boys" is a fresh take on the superhero genre that garnered critical acclaim after its premiere in July 2019.

Season two, released in September 2020, doubled down on the show's unapologetic look at a world in which superheroes, known as supes, are owned by a nefarious corporation called Vought International.

But before finding a way to top season one's famous dolphin scene - due to another gory sea creature casualty - the season two premiere opened with Starlight/Annie January (Erin Moriarty) being forced to deliver an award-worthy performance at the funeral for the aforementioned supe, Translucent (Alex Hassell).

"The Boys" composer Christopher Lennertz received very clear directions from showrunner and executive producer Eric Kripke before he wrote the song: "He said, 'I need you to write me an Adele-meets-Celine-Dion-meets-Whitney showstopper, over-the-top power ballad," he recalled.

The result was "Never Truly Vanish," an unabashedly grandiose song that's equal parts heartfelt and ludicrous in its delivery by Moriarty (yes, that is actually her singing the track).

Writer and co-executive producer Michael Saltzman said that's what made the song and accompanying visuals so hilarious - it's the conjunction of how "ridiculous" the production was paired with "the absolute conviction and sincerity with which they're doing the song."

"And the writing of the song had to be approached the same way, it's gotta be a legit, authentic song that would be in this situation," Saltzman added.

Ahead of the 73rd Primetime Emmys next month, Lennertz and Saltzman spoke to Insider about how Starlight's anthem came together and landed the "The Boys" a nomination for outstanding original music and lyrics.

Although the show's head writer, Kripke penned the episode, "The Big Ride," Saltzman described the process as "a real group effort" in which all the writers pitched story ideas and contributed to the outlines.

Saltzman, who joined the show in its second season after one of his scripts caught Kripke's attention, "dabbled" in songwriting throughout his three decades working in TV. As a fan of the comic-book genre and musicals, the former "Murphy Brown" showrunner was eager to try his hand at writing lyrics for Starlight to sing at Translucent's funeral.

"I volunteered to Eric and I said, 'I love writing song lyrics and I have a real take on this if you'd let me do it,'" Saltzman recalled. "He said, 'Yeah, knock yourself out.'"

Saltzman's goal was to write the lyrics "with a degree of sincerity and authenticity."

"You can't be making fun of the thing you're doing while you're doing it," he said. "You have to write it as if it's a legit version of the song that Celine Dion is going to sing at the 'In Memoriam' segment at the Oscars. It had to have that kind of gravitas to it."

One phrase from the writers' room served as the crux for his lyrics: "You'll never truly vanish from our hearts." The phrase was a play on Translucent's power of invisibility, which would inspire other satirical lyrics like: "And though we could see through you, it seems we hardly knew you."

Another comic-book character also served as inspiration for Saltzman's lyrics.

"If Translucent had been a character like Angel in the X-Men with actual wings, 'Wind Beneath My Wings' would have been the perfect song for his memorial," Saltzman said. "That was kind of the template that I had in my head when I was writing."

The direction he got from the showrunner, aside from channeling iconic powerhouse singers, was that it needed to be "ridiculously cheesy, over-the-top, but it also has to be something that Starlight would sing in the modern world. It has to be something that Vought would produce."

Because Kripke wanted the song to have lines that seemed serious on first listen, but are far more ridiculous upon closer inspection, Lennetz received a script with lyrics like "our heroes never die" and "your spirit fills the sky."

"It's the straighter the better whenever it comes to song parodies like that. And they're hard to do," Lennertz said.

"It's like a ski jump or something. If you don't commit to it, you're going to hurt yourself, always," he added. "It's one of those things where you've got to just be like, 'No, no, this is what we're doing and we're going to sell it till the very end of it. There's no wink. There's no cracking a smile. It is serious, as serious as can be.'"

With Saltzman's ideas and the visuals written into the script, Lennertz began composing "Never Truly Vanish," which took approximately six months mainly because Lennertz had to work around Moriarty's availability and other production factors.

Kripke and the "Boys" crew knew that the song was going to begin at the funeral, and would include visuals like young Translucent's bar mitzvah photos showing a floating yarmulke over his invisible head. Starlight would sing to an empty glass casket and the whole setting would feel "extremely patriotic with religious overtones," Saltzman said.

Then the scene would cut to The Deep (Chace Crawford) watching the funeral from a TV in a bar in Sandusky, Ohio.

"We had to make sure there were perfect sections in each part of the song so we could make that work in the show," Lennertz said, explaining that the verses needed to compliment Kripke's planned visuals.

Additionally, Lennertz said that the song needed to have a "huge bridge moment where she really belts it out and we needed the big drum fill that gets us back into the chorus, which every big power ballad has to have."

And that bridge had to be accompanied by Starlight's eyes lighting up as she dramatically raised her glowing hand.

"Everybody wants something to sound the best it can sound," the composer said, adding that no matter how great a vocalist is, "if something's not in their range, it's gonna be terrible."

"We've all seen it on TV when some amazing singer sings the National Anthem and it's just one step too high and they can't hit the big note," he explained. "So luckily, Erin was really down with the entire approach."

Lennertz determined the top of Moriarty's range over the phone as he played the piano. Then he adjusted the key to fit her vocal ability. After Moriarty rehearsed the song and minor adjustments were made to accommodate room for breathing and other aspects, it was time for her to record.

"When Erin finally came in to sing, it was where it all sort of came together and everyone went, 'Oh, this is special,'" said Lennertz, describing the recording process as "magical."

Moriarty had never been in a recording studio prior to singing "Never Truly Vanish" so there was some skepticism about whether she'd be able to fully deliver. Any doubts were squashed when the actress began recording.

"It took two minutes, literally. And she was like, 'All right, let's go,'" Lennertz remembered. "She got in the booth and she absolutely sold the concept just like she did on-screen and said, 'I'm going to commit to this.'"

"Within 10 minutes she was fully acting the part and singing to the microphone as if she was Whitney Houston or Adele," he added. "She just jumped right in and nailed it. We were giddy."

Lennertz said the rough mix of Moriarty's vocals on the track proved to everyone "that it was going to work" musically and within the context of the show.

"Eric played it for us after it had been recorded and everyone kind of looked around and went, 'Wow, this is amazing. Who's doing the vocals?' And he was like, 'Erin is,'" Saltzman recalled. "She blew us all away."

Kripke decided that they needed a bigger stage and larger auditorium for the funeral because of how grand the song turned out, Lennertz said. By the time they were ready to film the scene, all Moriarty had to do was lip-sync and channel all the emotions that she brought in the studio.

"My jaw was on the floor when I finally saw what they shot," Lennertz added. "I was like, 'This is better than it read in the script.' And it read great in the script."

That led to making a black-and-white music video, starring Moriarty's character, surrounded by a bunch of invisible dancers.

"It's just such a ridiculous idea," Lennertz said. "Eric and I always talk about the fact that they literally are paying us to be this ridiculous is just... We never would have thought of this when we were sitting in film school together."

When viewers first met her, she was a starry-eyed supe who wanted to save the world with her ability to absorb electricity and emit energy blasts. So when she earned a coveted spot in the prestigious Vought-run supes group, known as The Seven, Starlight thought she hit the jackpot.

The illusion was quickly shattered when she realized that her colleagues were far from the clean-cut heroes that they pretended to be in public. On her first day as part of the Seven, she was sexually assaulted by The Deep. When she went to cry in the bathroom afterward, Translucent was lurking inside and misusing his power of invisibility to spy on women.

Throughout the season, Starlight would toe the line between her duty to Vought and her desire to make a real difference with the help of The Boys, a rag-tag vigilante group that includes her love interest, Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid).

Starlight's previous experiences, along with being forced to perform a tribute to a perverted supe at the opening of season two, set the stage for her to summon "a dark side of herself," Moriarty previously told Insider.

"It was always going to be a Starlight moment," Lennertz said of "Never Truly Vanish."

"One of the things they really wanted it to do was comment on the fact that she made a huge transition from the beginning of season one to the end of season one," he continued, "both with her relationship with Hughie and with her empowerment of 'I'm not going to take s--- anymore.'"

"And here was this guy Translucent, who she knew was this creep that used to hang out in the bathroom. And the real honest truth about Vought is, 'That's too bad. You gotta sing this thing because you're part of The Seven and we pay your salary.' It's that gross over-commercialization, sellout thing that had to be in there to set up the rest of season two."

In its freshman season, "The Boys" nabbed one Emmy nomination, for outstanding sound editing for a comedy or drama series (one hour). By the time the show returned for season two, more people caught onto its clever commentary on real-world events and ability to completely flip the superhero genre on its head.

Barack Obama even named "The Boys" as one of his favorite shows of last year and told Entertainment Weekly that he watched the series when he needed a break from writing his memoir, "A Promised Land."

"When President Obama singled the show out as one of his favorite of the year that blew my mind," Saltzman said, calling "The Boys" a "zeitgeist show" that's become part of the larger "cultural conversation."

Given the continued reach of "The Boys," the five total Emmy nominations this year weren't out of the blue. Still, Lennertz said it was a "total shocker" to those involved in the making of the show.

"All of us just assume that superhero shows aren't going to get award nominations because they haven't in the past," Lennertz said.

In addition to the nomination for "Never Truly Vanish," the series got a nod for drama series and was recognized in categories honoring sound mixing, special visual effects, and writing.

Saltzman admitted he was completely clueless about how best song nominations work because he had never written anything that had a shot at one. In fact, he wasn't even planning on waking up early for the Emmy nominations, since he didn't expect much from them. But when his wife came into their bedroom that morning, he had exciting news to share.

"She saw me sitting up in there and she goes, 'Oh, you're up?' I said, 'Yeah. Hey, guess what I have in common with Robert Lopez and Bo Burnham?' And she said, 'What?' I said, 'That we're all Emmy nominees for best song. And she was like, 'What?'" he recalled with a laugh.

"It was a huge thrill to be in that company. And such a delightful surprise."

"I can't tell anybody what they are or how many, but Eric did let everybody know that there would be more supes singing this year," he said. "I'm really excited about who's singing those."

The composer added: "What we haven't done yet is a duet and I would love to do a duet. That's all I can say."

For Lennertz, getting to work with Kripke for nearly 30 years and compose original tracks for the characters of "The Boys" is a full-circle moment that makes the recent Emmy nomination even more rewarding.

"It was like somebody handed me the job that I didn't even know I wanted five years ago," he said. "And now I've got my dear friend being like, 'Hey, do it for us and let's have fun with it and go over the top.'"

"I will keep writing as many songs for Eric as he wants me to write."