Music and the Movies

I've been pondering this list, and how exactly to approach it, for a while. How does one best go about compiling a mix of songs from movie soundtracks? First I searched the net, looking for what various other people did...various "best" lists...some better than others...some that just didn't suit my purpose (Sound of Music may be a great soundtrack, but it's not really what I had in mind for this list). Alan suggested that I just stick to music that played over opening credits. I ran with that for a while, but it really became too limiting. I mean, there are a few that just automatically spring to mind, like "The End" at the beginning of Apocalypse Now. What a great use of irony in music! But after a while you really run out of solid ideas, and you're just putting up songs from the beginning of movies because there in the beginning of the film. So I went back to the drawing board. I finally decided that I was going to put together a list of songs that made something...anything...about a movie memorable to me. Perhaps when you see the song, it's reason for being on a movie soundtrack mix may not be readily apparent. But also, perhaps when I explain why I've put the song here, you might come back with an "Ahhhhhhhhhh, I get it."...or not. So instead of just showing the list, I thought I would include an explanation for why many of these are here.

1. "Closer," Nine Inch Nails, Se7en. This song is in fact over the opening credits of the movie. This song really does provide just such a great mood-setter to this movie. This song doesn't really have a creepy-feel to it, but its just so raw, matching up so well with the look and mood of film.

2. "Fisherman's Blues," The Waterboys, Waking Ned Devine and Good Will Hunting. Talk about symmetry! This song starts off Ned Devine and finishes off Good Will Hunting. Plus I just love this song. I have to admit that this is probably why I added it. Just a toe-tapper.

3. "Son of a Preacher Man," Dusty Springfield," Pulp Fiction. I don't think that this song coming from this movie is much of a surprise. I know this is Travolta and Uma Thurman back at her place. Does the OD scene happen to this song? Isn't that right?

4. "Across 110th Street," Bobby Womack, Jackie Brown. I believe this is another opening credit songs. Whenever I hear this song I can't get it out of my head for DAYS. I'm not exaggerating. I will be driving to work on Monday, and I guarantee that this song will be going through my mind. (By the way it's also in American Gangerster over the montage of heroine being shipped in from Vietnam. Which leads me to the next track.)

5. "Perfect Day," Lou Reed, Trainspotting. Most of the lists that I saw online that dealt with Trainspotting chose Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life." Opening credits I think. And it is a tempting choice. But I think this song at the scene in the film with Ewan McGregor kicking smack is such a better choice. Don't you?

6. "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters," Elton John, Almost Famous. If I had said to you "Elton John song; Almost Famous. I'm sure you would have said "Tiny Dancer." Yeah the bus scene...nice warm and fuzzy. And I like that scene and the use of the song as well. But I really love the way Cameron Crowe uses this song in the film. This is when Penny runs out of the bar, and William chases her out and can't figure out which cab she's in and runs to the hotel to find her. BEFORE SHE O.D.s ON QUALUDES TO "MY CHERIE AMOUR." (Yeah, that's a great one too. Having your stomach pumped was never more sexy!!!) I just think this is a beautiful use of music in a very beautiful film.

7. "Banana Boat Song," Harry Belafonte, Beetlejuice. Okay, I'm messing with you a little bit here. I do like the song in the movie, but if you absolutely hate this, you've got a skip button on your CD player.

8. "Fight the Power," Public Enemy, Do the Right Thing. No doubt the first time I heard Public Enemy. Works so well with the film. I so wish Spike Lee would make more movies.

9. "Sunshine of Your Love," Cream, Goodfellas. Again, most lists online chose "Layla"'s piano solo for this movie. Yes, great use of music. I mean, it's Scorsese; would you expect less? The song right before that is this one. It's a slow moving, closing in shot on DeNiro as he's sitting there at the bar, cig in his hand, smoke swirling around, contemplating going on his whack-spree...which is where "Layla" comes in. I think it's equally as powerful.

10. "Hurricane," Bob Dylan, Dazed and Confused. No, not from The Hurricane. I chose this song because of a scene from Dazed and Confused. It's the pool hall scene. Another slow motion shot. Matthew McConaughey, et. al., are walking into the pool hall...got a strut going...and this song is playing. I just was always struck by the aesthetics of the scene.

11. "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out," Cat Stevens. Okay, if you don't know why this song is on here, then get the fuck off my blog!!!

12. "Heart of Saturday Night," Tom Waits, A Perfect Storm. Just one of those scenes that stuck with me...don't know why. It's when they're all in the bar the night before the ship shove's off the next morning. Just like the song in that scene. Weird. I think that "Fisherman's Blues" is in this scene too.

13. "Moving In Stereo," The Cars, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Phoebe Cates topless out of the pool. Judge Reinhold jacking off. How could I pick any other song from this movie?

14. "Walking on Sunshine," Katrina and the Waves," Shit, pick a movie. This one really has been in quite a few films. High Fidelity immediately springs to mind. Secret of My Success... remember that one with Michael J. Fox?

15. "Sound of Silence," Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate. Figured this was a good one to end on. I know many would have chosen "Mrs. Robinson," but I think that the visual/song dichotomy is much more striking in the opening and other scenes with this song.

Click on Phoebe's boobs for the link.

I actually wanted to get this post up yesterday in honor of Jeanne Moreau's 80th birthday. Moreau is a French actress primarily from the 60s, probably most famous for her role in Jules et Jim in 1962. But I am posting this for her role in Ascenseur pour l'échafaud in 1958...for which Miles Davis did the soundtrack. In the sixties and seventies, many jazz musicians did movie soundtracks, both for artistic edification and for the cash. Best known is probably Herbie Hancock's soundtrack for Blow-Up. But Miles was quite the pioneer in doing so in 1958. Of course the soundtrack is very Miles. But in very short doses because he was only writing songs long enough for individual, mostly short scenes. So it really has that Birth of the Cool feel a little bit here. The film itself is very nice as well. Directed by Louis Malle, it was big deal for Moreau to get the part. She had done quite a few films before this one, but I'm sure being cast in a Louis Malle film in 1958 was a "cut-above" at the time. Well, enjoy the album.

Two Walls of Sound

A few posts ago, I put togeth a little "off-the-beaten-trail" 80s mix. At the time, I commented that my list turned out to be a little more post punk than I had initially intended. The Minutemen, the Replacements, X, Social Distortion, Violent Femmes...all 80s bands that followed what '70s punk movement had started. But even in the 70s, there developed such a wide range of directions in which individual bands took punk music.

While 80s bands like the Police and Social Distortion may have taken up the punk flag and marched with it in their own way, it still seemed that much of the anger an nihilism of the Pistols, the Clash, and the Ramones...along with all of the bands which followed them in the late 70s had been lost by the mid-80s. Of course I'm generalizing. It didn't seem that the fire was regained until the hardcore bands of the late-80s and early 90s like Black Flag and Anthrax. And now of course we have all degree of band that seems to want to follow that path to "burn it all down."

A couple of months ago I threw together a mix of about 70 MP3s of punk and hardcore, labelled it "Music by Really Pissed-Off People" and handed it off to a buddy. My friend said that he really dug all the edgy stuff I had randomly selected, and at the time I was really rediscovering a lot of punk stuff that I had passingly heard through the years, and gave more of it a thoughtful listen. It occured (and occurs) to me that anger may be both the basest and the most honest of all human emotions. Love, friendship, kindness is often faked for a variety of reasons, but rarely can you say that about hate and anger. So when its expressed in music, there's a certain genuineness to it. This has always been the draw of punk. So I offer you this list as a celebration of that anger and with this sentiment from the end of Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the final scene of the play, Laertes says to Hamlet's attempt to make nice: "...I don receive your offered love like love, and will not wrong it." If you know the play, you know Laertes hardly means it, and goes on to kill Hamlet a couple of pages later. So I hope instead you will receive this offered anger like anger, and not wrong it. Instead, CRANK IT UP AND PISS OFF THE NEIGHBORS.

1. "Caught with Your Meat in Your Mouth," The Dead Boys, Young, Loud and Snotty

2. "Baby, Baby," The Vibrators, Pure Mania
3. "Psychobitches Outta Hell," The HorrorPops, Hell Yeah!

4. "Your Mangled Heart," The Gossip, Standing in the Way of Control
5. "Instant Hit," The Slits, Cut
6. "One Chord Wonders," The Adverts, Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts
7. "You Gotta Move," Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Destiny Street
8. "I Don't Know What to Do With My Life," The Buzzcocks, A Different Kind of Tension

9. "When the Shit Hits the Fan," The Circle Jerks, Golden Shower of Hits
10. "New Rose," The Damned, Damned, Damned, Damned
11. "Nights in White Satin," The Dickies, Dawn of the Dickies
12. "Astro Zombies," The Misfits, Walk Among Us
13. "Junkie Man," Rancid, ...And Out Come the Wolves
14. "Sleeping Aides and Razor Blades," The Exploding Hearts, Guitar Romantic
15. "Living with Unemployment," The Oppressed, Music for Hooligans

16. "One Hundred Punks," Generation X, Generation X
17. "Tomorrow's Girls," UK Subs, Another Kind of Blues
18. "Uptown," The Stranglers, Aural Sculpture
19. "Suspect Device," Stiff Little Fingers, Inflammable Material

Punk-Ass Disc

For my full album post, here's something that's about as far away from punk as you can possibly get...well, maybe not as far as you can get, but pretty damned far. I downloaded Back to Mono, the collection of different Phil Spector produced stuff...mostly the girl group stuff from the Ronettes and the Crystals. For about two weeks I just kept listening. Then I was lucky enough to find this wonderful LP of just the Ronettes from 1964...produced by Spector with the unmistakable Wall of Sound. I just think that the sound is just so perfect. And it is the sound of my early childhood. When I was a kid, my father had a reel-to-reel deck, and he would just play Motown (although this isn't really Motown) and girl-groups over and over. So the sound has a certain nostalgic quality for me...and I'm sure that it does for many others. I hope that you enjoy this one. I really dig this album!

Not So Readily Recognizable

The other night my wife and I were laying around reading and I had "Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet" playing and when it got to "Salt Peanuts" and the rather long drum solo, Michelle bitched about the randomness of drum solos. I considered whether or not I should argue the artistic value of drum solos in jazz, but realized that it was a futile effort and went back to my book. But in the back of my mind the seed was germinating over all of the jazz standard that we've come to appreciate, especially in the variety of interpretations of different artists. "Salt Peanuts" is great when it's done by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, but Miles brings his own unique perspective on the song. Or Bill Evans playing Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy."

At first I considered doing a play list with various versions of just a few songs. And since it's jazz, and different versions by different artists are so vastly...well...different...it would have probably worked okay. Instead though, I decided that I would collect 10 or 12 recognizable jazz standards, but with a less-than-recognizable version. In other words, when you think of "Autumn in New York," the tendency is to think about Billie Holiday. Instead I have posted Charlie Parker's version. I also tried to stay away from jazz interpretations of pop standards, like Coltrane's "My Funny Valentine" or Miles Davis' "Some Day My Prince Will Come." (Though it was very tempting to throw in Miles playing "Surrey with the Fringe on Top.") With that said I have begun and ended the playlist with two pop standards, "Autumn in New York" and "April in Paris," just because there was some a degree of symmetry to it.

As I was saying, I started this off with "Autumn in New York," one of Billie Holiday's more beautiful numbers, and of course nobody can do this song like Billie. But I really like this Charlie Parker version. He doesn't really "bop it out" too much. The song stays melodic throughout. And I just recently got this version from a box set of The Complete Verve Recordings of Charlie Parker that my wife's uncle gave me for Christmas. The followed that up with "Salt Peanuts," originally a Gillespie and Parker collaboration (I think...but might just be Dizzy), but here I have just Miles on the "Steamin'" album. Maybe one of these days I'll post a playlist of Miles songs just from that great foursome of the "Workin'," "Steamin'," "Relaxin'," and "Cookin'" albums, but that's for another day.

On the 3rd song, I love what Grant Green does with "Django on the guitar, which is most recognizable with the MJQ version Milt Jackson's vibes. I used to not be much of a fan of jazz guitar, but now I really enjoy Green along with Montgomery, Burrell and of course Django Reinhardt...which maybe why I've put "Django" here as a guitar number.

I also threw in Thelonious Monk's version of "Just a Gigolo." Probably more of a pop standard than a jazz standard...but the song from Monk makes me smile. And "Along Came Betty" is one of my favorite jazz standards. It's just so smooth. I'm not sure who originated the song, but I have Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers doing it here because that's the first place I heard the song.

Another one that I'm not really sure where the song first came from is "Lover Man." But this particular version really gets to me. This comes off of a collection of Charlie Parker songs from his recordings with Dial Records. The story goes that Parker got stuck in K.C., I think. He was originally from there, but was back in Kansas City for some reason, broke, and without any way to score heroine. So he just stayed drunk, like all the time. For this particular song, apparently he was so drunk that two guys had to hold him up to the microphone while he was playing. And you can just feel the pain oozing from his horn on this song. I absolutely love this version of "Lover Man." If I'm getting the story wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.

And I ended it all off with Ella and Satchmo doing "April in Paris." Like I said before, I thought that it gave some symmetry to the list with "Autumn in New York" beginning the set. Maybe if I was a stickler I would have started in April and ended in Autumn, but I think it works better like this.

1. "Autumn in New York," Charlie Parker
2. "Salt Peanuts," Miles Davis
3. "Django," Grant Green
4. "Epistrophy," Eric Dolphy
5. "Just a Gigolo," Thelonious Monk
6. "Along Came Betty," Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
7. "A Night in Tunisia," Kenny Dorham
8. "Lover Man," Charlie Parker
9. "Take the 'A' Train," Clifford Brown and Max Roach
10. "On Green Dolphin Street," Bill Evans
11. "Basin Street Blues," Jimmy Smith
12. "April in Paris," Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Jazz Standards

About 15 years ago I yanked this little gem out of a bargain bin somewhere, and I'm so pleased with myself for grabbing this CD. I haven't seen it anywhere else, and had a bitch of a time finding the album artwork for my iTunes. The art I have below is not the cover off of the disc, but something I found on the web...maybe they've repackaged and rereleased this album. "Body and Soul" is a live Dizzy Gillespie performance from 1957. It's not a very long disk, but of course you get the full Dizzy showmanship here. AND it has 2 songs with Sarah Vaughan, really at a high point in her career. This is the same year she released the live album "At Mister Kelly's." The sound is not the best, but I thought it was well worth a post.

Tit-Deep in the Blues

While I was at work a couple of days ago, I was cleaning my disaster area of a desk and uncovered a playlist that I started working on months ago. It really wasn't very good, but I notice that two of the songs where "Blues"-titled songs, AC/DC's "Down Payment Blues" and ZZ Top's "Blue Jean Blues." That set my mental cogs a-turnin'. Surely there were tons of songs released by non-blues bands that had "Blues" in the title. So I set to making a list. I came up with 8 pretty quickly, and then set Alan on the trail. Of course he came to work the next day with a very nice list of his own. That night I went home, search through my iTunes and came up with 10 or so more.

In whittling this list down, I tried to stay away from blues artists, even rock artists like the Allman Brothers Band who lean heavily toward the blues. Now, realize that rock is blues-based, so the line is fairly hazy on this. In other words, don't be too critical of my selections on this basis. I understand that some of these bands do border on a "blues-rock" band. Nevertheless... I also tried to incorporate a number of different eras and styles. So this stretches from Pink Floyd's trippy little "Jugband Blues" from Saucer Full of Secrets, to Babyshambles recent "French Dog Blues" from Shotter's Nation. I also tried to stay away from the standards that would fill this category. So there's no "Subterranean Homesick Blues," no "Bell Bottom Blues," no "Roadhouse Blues." So here is a very, very eclectic take on the blues. Hope you like.

1. Social Distortion, "Ghost Town Blues," Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
2. Bob Dylan, "Outlaw Blues," Bringing It All Back Home
3. Merle Haggard, "California Blues," Same Train, A Different Time
4. Ryan Adams, "Rescue Blues," Gold
5. Townes Van Zandt, "Sanitarium Blues," A Far Cry From Dead
6. The Eels, "Electro-Shock Blues," Electro-Shock Blues
7. The Black Crowes, "Struttin' Blues," Shake Your Money Maker
8. Babyshambles, "French Dog Blues," Shotter's Nation
9. The Big Boys, "Same Old Blues," The Fat Elvis
10. Tom Waits, "Tom Traubert's Blues," Small Change
11. Blondie, "Bermuda Triangle Blues (Flight 45)," Plastic Letters
12. AC/DC, "Down Payment Blues," Powerage
13. Rick Danko, "Java Blues," Rick Danko
14. Dennis Wilson, "Pacific Ocean Blues," Pacific Ocean Blue
15. Steve Earle, "John Walker Blues," Jerusalem
16. The Kinks, "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoid Blues," Muswell Hillbillies
17. T. Rex, "Lean Woman Blues," Electric Warrior
18. Pink Floyd, "Jugband Blues," Saucerful of Secrets
19. The Black Keys, "Aeroplane Blues," Rubber Factory
20. Neil Young, "Vampire Blues," On the Beach

Download Here




In looking at this playlist though, I feel I've been neglectful of the ladies of the blues. So for my full album post, I will rectify this travesty. I can think of no better way to do that than with Etta James' first album, At Last! (1961). While this album may be more "soulish" than "bluesy," I think we can overlook this for the Matriarch of the Blues. Besides, this album has my two favorite Etta James songs..."At Last" and "Sunday Kind of Love."

Album Cover is the Link.