Music comes naturally out of the drama

There's an old Randy Newman song called "Baltimore" that would fit

The Wire

so perfectly that it seems as if it was written with the uncompromising HBO series in mind.

"Hard times in the city, in a hard town by the sea / Ain't nowhere to run to, ain't nothin' here for free," the piano man sings, expressing a perspective that could have come from characters on either side of the law in David Simon's gripping serial drama.

Its music finally has been gathered on two soundtrack albums being released Tuesday,

. . . And All the Pieces Matter - Five Years of Music From the Wire

and

Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks From the Wire

.

But never in

The Wire

's five seasons is Newman's voice heard to moan, "Oh, Baltimore / Man it's hard, just to live."

That's because

The Wire

takes no shortcuts. As each season's intricate narrative arc is constructed, each of the story elements rises from the ground up - beginning with the Tom Waits-penned theme song about struggle between good and evil, "Way Down in the Hole," sung by a different artist each season.

The genre-spanning

All the Pieces

(Nonesuch ***½) ranges from Solomon Burke's rendition of Van Morrison's "Fast Train" to "The Life, the Hood, the Streetz," by Baltimore rap stalwart Mullyman, and includes takes on "Hole" by Waits, the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Neville Brothers, and the Baltimore hip-hop vocal group DoMaJe. To hear the version by country rocker Steve Earle - who plays the heroin addict Walon, and is featured in the show's fifth season, starting tonight - you'll have to buy his album

Washington Square Serenade

.

Newman's "Baltimore," though, is too obvious, too pat for

The Wire

. What's worse, it's a tale of abandonment: Newman's narrator leaves the city behind and vows he's "never comin' back here till the day I die."

That thought would be anathema to Detective Shakima "Kima" Greggs or drug kingpin Avon Barksdale or union chief Frank Sobotka -

Wire

characters who, no matter how dire the conditions in Charm City, would never consider cutting and running.

That stick-and-stay attitude, the allegiance to the place where you were born and feel you belong, is probably best exemplified by Bodie, the West Baltimore drug soldier played by J.D. Williams. His trip to Philadelphia at the start of Season Two is included in a sound clip on the sprawling

All the Pieces

.

(

Hamsterdam

[Nonesuch **½], contains no sound clips and isn't essential - all but two of its gritty hip-hop and R&B tracks, including standouts such as Tyree Colion's "Projects," are also on the broader

All the Pieces

.)

Bodie, who has never left his hometown before, is faced with an unexpected horror while driving up I-95 to pick up a heroin shipment. His favorite hip-hop station fades out, and Garrison Keillor's public radio voice - presumably, on WHYY-FM (90.9) - comes over the speakers. "What is this, a Philly station?" Bodie asks, recoiling in revulsion. "Why would anyone want to leave Baltimore, is what I'm asking."

Do any shows on TV use music as subtly, or as well, as

The Wire

, that's what I'm asking. The answer is no. HBO series from

The Sopranos

to

Six Feet Under

have been acclaimed for their use of music, and deservedly so. What's different about

The Wire

is that its music is diagetic, to use a word I learned from notes with

All the Pieces

by crime novelist and

Wire

writer George Pelecanos.

The less technical term preferred by the writer - whose books often masterfully illuminate characters through music, as does

The Wire

- is "source" music. Which means that when you hear music on

The Wire

, it's almost never part of an orchestral score or a pop song thrust upon a scene in hopes of creating soundtrack marketing synergy. The source of the sound is apparent on the screen, and the music's there because it enriches the story.

So when hard-drinking longshoremen are listening to the Nighthawks blast through Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons," it's because the blues band is in the bar, playing it. When D'Angelo Barksdale is in a car riding to what he thinks is his imminent death, he hears Masta Ace's foreboding "Unfriendly Game."

And when Detective Jimmy McNulty is on a drunken-driving binge, and crashes his car into a highway support twice, he's rocking the Pogues' "Transmetropolitan." That tune didn't make it onto either

Wire

CD, though the Irish punk band's "The Body of an American," which plays during a crucial wake scene in Season Three, is on

Pieces

.

The release of a

Wire

soundtrack took five years undoubtedly because the show has never been a breakout success. Not until

The Sopranos

shut down did Simon's show finally get the attention it has long merited.

But another reason we haven't been inundated with

such discs is that there isn't very much music on

The Wire

. The truly great thing is that music isn't overused. In every aspect, the sublime cop show is disciplined and patient. And so, unlike almost any other TV show or movie,

The Wire

doesn't insult your intelligence by piping in music at every turn, telling you what to think. It lets you think for yourself.