A fitting song played when the credits rolled during the How I Met Your Mother series finale's credits sequence. The CBS series was developed by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays and ran for nine seasons from 2004 to 2015. In those years, the sitcom featured a number of monumental moments that were increasingly memorable through music. The outstanding soundtrack was often used to foreshadow what was to come or highlight significant scenes. The latter of which was the case with the show's final sequence.
The final episode of How I Met Your Mother, "Last Forever," was split into two parts. The first part started with a flashback to when the gang welcomed Robin into the group before returning to the present-day timeline with Robin and Barney's wedding reception. Ted contemplated introducing himself to the woman on the train platform who the viewers knew to be the "Mother." The rest of part 1 and the majority of part 2 then featured fast forward scenes to Ted's future with the Mother, aka Tracy McConnell. The series finale showed Ted finally approaching his future wife, but the scene came after it was revealed that she would pass away just a few years into their marriage.
After Ted finished up telling his kids the story about how he met their mom, they encouraged him to take another chance on Robin, the woman he was still clearly in love with. He did so by using the blue french horn in the show's final live-action scene. The series finale was a bit controversial, but featured several touching moments which were amplified through key songs. To lead into the credits for the final time, How I Met Your Mother used still images of the cast taken during the pilot episode while playing the song "Heaven" by The Walkmen, and it couldn't have been a more perfect choice.
The Importance Of "Heaven" By The Walkmen In The HIMYM Series Finale
The Walkmen is an American indie rock band that has been around since 2000. The song "Heaven" is the titular tune from the band's seventh studio album released in 2012. The song itself was highly significant, not just for the finale, but for How I Met Your Mother as a whole. The lyrics "Our children will always hear / Romantic tales of distant years" perfectly described the theme of the show: Future Ted telling his children the story of his romantic journey to meeting their mother — a story that occurs over several years. The song also touched on a lifelong friendship to reiterate the bond between Ted, Marshall, Lily, Barney, and Robin throughout the series.
The song from The Walkmen was nearly used in the How I Met Your Mother season 8 premiere episode, when the series first teased Ted meeting the Mother at the Farhampton train station. Instead, the series decided to hold it for the final episode, since it held a deeper connection to all of the characters, not just Ted. It served as the perfect fit to close out the sitcom, almost as if it was written for How I Met Your Mother.