Music in Movies, Movies in Music

[dulcedemon]

This piece was brought about by the passing of Steve Cropper, and an unrelated documentary that will be on the next movie list. It was a fun exercise for me. Probably a one time thing.

I can't think of Steve Cropper without thinking about Booker T. & the M.G.s. The first song that comes to mind is Time Is Tight. My grandmother had it in her record collection. It was also a playlist staple on local oldies station WKAB 103.5FM. I liked the song, but other than that, I didn't give it much thought.

Then in 1999, I saw Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Time Is Tight hasn't been the same for me since. Whenever I hear it, dialog and visuals from the movie leap into my head. Evasive driving tips in the event of a hot pursuit by a highway cop: "Brace for the Gs. Fast heel-toe work.". While cruising along in a minty, luxury rental car: "Now this was a superior machine. Ten grand worth of gimmicks and high-priced special effects. The rear windows leapt up with a touch like frogs in a dynamite pond. The dashboard was full of esoteric lights and dials and meters... that I would never understand.". It's not always the whole bit about the rental car. More often than not, it's just the part about the frogs.

So I gave some thought to other songs I knew that were altered in meaning, association, or appreciation by their use in cinema, and I came up with this non-exhaustive list:

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears For Fears) - Real Genius (1985) - Children frolicking in enormous mounds of popcorn... Gives me a craving for Jiffy Pop.

Moonchild (King Crimson) - Buffalo '66 (1998) - Christina Ricci in the spotlight as she does a slow tap dance number at a bowling alley in what is essentially a non-verbal soliloquy. She is wearing a flouncy, babydoll dress, and high-heeled metallic shoes. I had the King Crimson album In the Court of the Crimson King since sometime in my teens. I was in my late twenties when I saw this movie. The scene and song are perfect together.

The Ecstasy of Gold (Ennio Morricone) - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo - 1966) - Twenty-six years ago, MTV presented Metallica: S&M (Symphony & Metallica) in concert, and I was smitten with The Ecstasy of Gold. I was disappointed to learn that Metallica didn't write it. Once I heard the original, I was done with their version.

I'm not a fan of Westerns, so I began my journey through the film scores of Ennio Morricone with horror movies from Dario Argento, and Mario Bava. From there, I moved on to his work with Pier Paolo Pasolini, then finally, Sergio Leone. By the time I saw the movie for which The Ecstasy of Gold was composed, I had a certain conception of it that didn't jibe with the action on screen. My expectation was that it would be paired with either a heroic entrance at the start of the film or a victorious ride off into the sunset at the end. A sweaty, desperate, gold-fevered Tuco (Eli Wallach) frantically running in circles in a massive cemetery was not what I had in mind.

Love Hurts (Nazareth) - Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007) - Had I been born fifteen years earlier, Love Hurts would have been the angsty, post romantic rejection, wallow and sulk song of my teen years. After a disappointing Halloween and too much candy, ten-year-old Michael Myers decides to sever family ties.

96 Tears (Question Mark & The Mysterians) - Cat's Eye (1985) - A husband (James Woods) is forced to watch his wife (Mary D'Arcy) being shock tortured by a highly amused, mobster turned doctor (Alan King) as part of an unorthodox smoking cessation program.

Ave Maria (Franz Schubert) - Needful Things (1993) - Leland Gaunt (Max von Sydow), feeling pleased with the chaos he wrought, relaxes beside a cozy fireplace, while elsewhere in town, two women cut each other to pieces. A smile of satisfaction crosses his face. It's quite the set of visuals to attach to the most beautiful of hymns.

Hang On Sloopy (The McCoys) - Jesus' Son (1999) - Fuckhead (Billy Crudup) and Wayne (Denis Leary) dance and clown around as they loot copper from the walls of Wayne's ex-wife's house (technically his house). Honorable mention goes to Yes, I'm Ready by Barbara Mason which accompanies a sweet and passionate lovers' reunion scene that everybody knows will come to a bad end not long after the make-up sex.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (The Platters) - Three Times (2005) - From A Time for Love, which is the first part of director Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times trilogy. Taiwan 1966, a soldier on leave, a pool hall hostess, subtle flirtation wreathed in cigarette smoke, clacking balls, the song is most effective though a bit literal, and the romance unfolds slowly and tenderly. I had to have this movie, but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere. When Netflix ended DVD rentals, their copy was one of our final five.

Connected (Stereo MC's) - Hackers (1995) - MTV and radio stations played the hell out this song, yet I somehow remained clueless that it had anything to do with a movie until twenty years later. I won't forget that scene anytime soon.

I Love The Nightlife (Alicia Bridges) - Love at First Bite (1979) - Oh for the love of Arte Johnson! Failing to secure the rights to this song for the original DVD release was a colossal blunder. The song they replaced it with doesn't go well at all. It's too fast for the choreography. He's a vampire, a suspiciously well-tanned vampire who loves the nightlife. He's got to boogie! There is no boogie in that replacement song. Love at First Bite was often on television when I was a kid. Watched it for Arte Johnson. Whenever I come across the song on an oldies station, I think of that laugh of his, even though he is not in the applicable scene.

Cross-Eyed Mary (Jethro Tull) - Breaking the Waves (1996) - Hearing Cross-Eyed Mary stopped me while channel surfing. "A Jethro Tull song in a movie!" I was not prepared for the harrowing ordeal of Breaking the Waves. It was my first Lars von Trier experience. The song became entwined with the image of a brightly lit, offshore oil platform looming above a storm tossed sea at night.

(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All (The 5th Dimension), and Guantanamera (Pete Seeger) - Last Night (1998) - Another channel surfing discovery, I stopped to listen to Marilyn McCoo's gorgeous voice. That first song summons a vision of Sandra Oh shopping for wine in a looted out supermarket. The second song is almost too heavy to bear. Guantanamera evokes nostalgia for a Pete Seeger concert I saw on PBS when I was a kid, while the action in the scene reminds me of a personal tragedy.

Time in a Bottle (Jim Croce) - Agatha All Along (2024) - I have been getting weepy over this song since it was on the Muppet Show in 1977. That's when my grandmother had to explain to me why there weren't going to be any more Jim Croce songs. Thanks, Marvel, for giving me yet another reason to cry.

Boogie Oogie Oogie (A Taste of Honey) - Lucy the Daughter of the Devil (2005-2007) - In a cold-blooded opening, a children's choir of vampires chooses a new song to sing. "Boogie no more... Boogie no more..."

Sway (Anita Kelsey) - Dark City (1998) - The version of Sway doesn't matter although I'm partial to Dean Martin. I'm not thinking of Jennifer Connelly. It's Richard O'Brien who comes to mind. I guess he sways me.

Ladyfingers (Herb Alpert) - Fallout (2024) - Taken in conjunction with a prior event, it's an almost literal interpretation of the song's title. What sticks with me is the tense mood and choreography of four strangers with no reason to trust each other, gingerly sidestepping each other at a narrow bridge crossing, while pretending to be unarmed.

Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode) - Russian Doll (2019-2022) - There are so many songs in this series that almost qualify, especially Thin Ice by Pink Floyd. Not the oft repeated Nilsson tune though, that one was new to me with the show. Personal Jesus is heard twice in season two. First the original, then later on a remix that plays as Nadia has an intense psychedelic drug experience at a rave in Budapest. I was never a Depeche Mode fan, but I associate this song with the end of junior high, which was also my first year of public school. That was two or three years before I got the notion to try DMT for myself. Almost four decades later, I still haven't tried it.

Open Arms (Journey) - Heavy Metal (1981) - Cab driver Harry Canyon's idea of hospitality: Awkward inflection, "And there's BEER, in the fridge.", and the corniest euphemism for sex, "I was giving this broad the stars and stripes forever."

Boléro (Maurice Ravel) - Love Exposure (Ai no mukidashi - 2008) - Ravel's Boléro gets around, but nothing stuck until the peek-a-panty paparazzi parkour in the park scene in Love Exposure.

Sinnerman (Nina Simone) - Lucifer (2016-2021) - Tom Ellis as Lucifer seated at a piano and playing the intro to this song is not a bad association to have. It's actually quite nice. Not that Nina Simone lacks for anything. When the Devil needs a divine favor, whom do they call upon?

Baby Blue (Badfinger) - Breaking Bad - The coda to the downward spiral of Walter White is a fluffy pop tune from a band often likened to and occasionally confused with the Beatles. Badfinger was an FM radio playlist perennial during my childhood. I had a lot of happy associations with family road trips and whatnot, then along came Breaking Bad. Walter collapses before his most perfect and devastating creation. His devotion to it, eclipsing all love and reason.

Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows (Lesley Gore) - BattleBots (2000-2002) - Way back when Battlebots was a thing on Comedy Central, a college student competed with a bot named Sunshine Lollibot, causing me to substitute 'bots' for 'pops' in the Lesley Gore song.

Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band) - The Devil's Rejects (2005) - Midnight Rider is unavoidable when listening to any classic rock radio station for more than hour. I think of the cut and freeze technique Rob Zombie used for the initial escape scene as Baby and Otis grab their guns and flee the family compound, slogging their way through a swampy wooded area to a nearby road. It's a gritty contrast the aesthetic of House of 1,000 Corpses. The cartoonish veneer is gone. The climactic Free Bird (Lynyrd Skynyrd) does not qualify. Sure, those final shots are seared into my memory, but I won't listen to Free Bird if I can help it. I never liked it, though I dated a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. Briefly.

Get Together (The Youngbloods) - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) - Experiencing this song coupled with the wave/high-water mark passage was a welcome relief from its ham-fisted use in commercial advertisements and other media looking to profit off sentiment for the utopian ideals of a counterculture movement that faded despite its momentum, disintegrating and mutating into the Me generation as the 1970s dawned. It's part nostalgia and part eulogy:
"And that, I think, was the handle--that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting--on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."