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Two years ago to this very day, Seth Rudetsky, the Broadway composer, musician, podcaster, host of a show on SiriusXM radio, fundraiser, musical cruise host, conveyer of pop culture trivia and, now, “source music consultant,” received a text from Craig Mazin, the screenwriter, director and producer. Mazin was friends with Ted Griffin, who is married to Sutton Foster, who knows, as does seemingly everybody else in musical theater, Rudetsky.

“I get this text,” Sudetsky remembers, “in all capital letters, saying It’S Emmy And Golden Globe Award Winning Craig Mazin. Stop What You’Re Doing. I Need Your Help.”

Specifically, Mazin needed a song for a TV episode he was working on, a show tune along the lines of “I Miss The Music” from the 2006 Kander & Ebb musical Curtains, only older.

If you’ve seen the third episode of HBO’s The Last Of Us, the post-apocalyptic drama created by...

HBO's The Last of Us episode 3 caused the song "Long Long Time" to explode in popularity and now, Linda Ronstadt is reacting. The Last of Us episode 3 has garnered widespread acclaim for chronicling a 20-year love story between Bill and Frank, played by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett. One creative choice that has been receiving a lot of attention is the episode's prominent use of the Linda Ronstadt song, "Long Long Time," which has caused the 50-year-old ballad to experience a massive resurgence in popularity.

Now, in a new interview with Billboard, the artist behind the viral song is reacting to its recent resurgence. The 76-year-old Linda Ronstadt has not seen HBO's The Last of Us nor does she follow social media very closely, though the singer has been informed of the song's resurgence and is happy that its writer, Gary White, will get a windfall. Ronstadt no longer owns...

It has been a long, long time since Linda Ronstadt sold the rights to her streaming catalog.

The singer reacted to the viral sequence in HBO’s “The Last of Us” featuring her 1970 ballad “Long Long Time.” The song jumped 4,900 percent on Spotify within an hour of the episode airing January 29 and rose to 149,000 percent the following day. The song is featured three separate times in the episode, including actors Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett playing the track on a piano. “Long Long Time” is also the title of the episode.

“I don’t follow social media or streaming services very closely,” Ronstadt told Billboard, citing that she never owned the master of “Long Long Time” written by Gary White. “I still love the song and I’m very glad that Gary will get a windfall.”

Ronstadt remembered, “I met Gary through guitarist David Bromberg, who took me to the...

The Last of Us aired a pivotal episode and caused Linda Ronstadt’s hit 1970 song “Long, Long Time” to surge in streams on Spotify.

Nick Offerman (Bill) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) share a moment in the third episode of the HBO zombie series where they play a cover version of Ronstadt’s hit song. The real version would then get played at the end of the episode with Ronstadt’s voice in full glory.

“On Sunday, January 29th, between 11Pm and midnight Et, there was more than 4900 increase in U.S. streams of ‘Long Long Time’ by Linda Ronstadt,” read a tweet from the streamer.

Oh, so all our hearts were breaking last night…...

Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time” has soared up the streaming charts following last night’s episode of the HBO series “The Last of Us.”

After the episode aired, the 1970s song saw streaming numbers increase by 4900 according to Spotify.

Oh, so all our hearts were breaking last night…...

Sunday night’s emotional “The Last of Us” episode titled “Long Long Time,” which featured the 1970 Linda Ronstadt song of the same name, had fans in tears – and hitting up streaming services to download the song about unrequited love.

In one scene, zombie apocalypse survivor Frank (Murray Bartlett) chooses “The Best of Linda Ronstadt” sheet music to play after being rescued by Bill (Nick Offerman), whose rendition of the song expresses his own loneliness. They then share their first kiss.

On Monday afternoon, the song had hit No. 5 on iTunes’ Top 100 Songs chart. It was written by Gary White and released as a single from her 1970 album “Silk Purse” and peaked at No. 25 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

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In 1971, Ronstadt was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Female Vocal Performance for the ballad. It was later covered...

[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Episode 3, “Long, Long Time.”]

One of the best things a show can do is break the illusion that everything is a foregone conclusion. Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to enjoy storytelling that makes each choice feel like just one of a wave of possibilities. Watching Episode 3 of “The Last of Us” for a second time, it’s hard not to be struck by that first meeting of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), when one single decision sets the events of the next 16 years in motion. After Frank falls in a makeshift trap Bill set up to snag would-be invaders, the gruff libertarian self-described “survivalist” decides to let in his first houseguest since at least the end of the world. That split-second choice turns out to be the thing that changes both of their lives.

In TV time, roughly 48 minutes goes by between Bill’s...

The Clinton Global Initiative, the signature event of the Clinton Foundation, is returning next week after a six-year absence.

The lineup for the Sept. 19-20 event again includes a mix of international leaders, politicians, corporate executives and celebrity philanthropists. Many participants make measurable commitments to action on problems such as climate change and world hunger.

Among those in the lineup are Matt Damon, Bono, Ashley Judd, Robin Wright and Lin-Manuel Miranda, along with Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Laurene Powell Jobs, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Jose Andres and Queen Rania of Jordan.

CGI, as it is known, was ended after the 2016 event, as Hillary Clinton was running for president and foreign donations to the foundation came under scrutiny.

The theme of this year’s event is “The Business of How,” and will include the announcement of a set of new commitments.

Wright, the co-founder of the Pour Les Femmes Foundation,...