The Big Whatsit

These days, they’re nothing out of the ordinary, but filling your movie’s soundtrack with tunes rather than an orchestral score is a relatively recent thing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it was the series of teen flicks written by John Hughes in the 1980s that popularised the form, following the arrival of MTV and music videos that started adding a visual narrative to chart hits. Let’s face it, when Molly Ringwald is making her prom dress in Pretty in Pink, what would you rather be listening to? New Order’s ‘Thieves like us’, or violins fiddling in tune with each scissor cut? Or how about the way ‘Don’t you (forget about me)’ by Simple Minds is synonymous with The Breakfast Club?

Pretty soon, soundtracks made up individual songs were the order of the day. The Top Gun record, which to my shame I bought, offered precious little of Howard Faltemeyer’s score, instead stuffing the LP with Giorgio Moroder, Kenny Loggins and bloody Berlin. Talking of Faltemeyer, he even had a shot at chart stardom himself, when his ‘Axel F’ theme from Beverley Hills Cop became a hit in its own right, a case of the song being actually better than the movie, if I may be so bold. For the girls, there was Dirty Dancing, with its album dominated by 1960s fare, before the whole thing descends into the awful bobbins of Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. Ver Gun aside, lads could opt for the rock-tinged soundtracks for Rockys III and IV, the latter of which was little more than a series of wordless action scenes set to Survivor and their axe-kissing mates.

Even movies that had little business featuring pop songs managed to churn out some spin-off hit. Bloody, bloody, bloody Bryan Adams couldn’t have overlorded the charts during an entire summer away from University with his interminable ‘Everything I do’ if not for its affiliation with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It’s not a bad film, but in my eyes it’s forever tainted by the sheer invincibilty of Adams’s MOR opera. The same’s true of Titanic, which should never have crapped out a Celine Dion megahit, and now a movie that was perfectly enjoyable has been ruined by the caterwauling, incongruous Canadian and her endless note holding. My own version of Hell would find me sat at one of her Las Vegas revues for all time, with Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston appearing as special guests.

Similarly there are some very fine examples of song placement, and the occasional instance when they’re used to perfection. Consider Goodfellas, where Henry Hill’s paranoid day leading to his arrest takes place against a quickfire succession of the Stones, the Who, etc, the tunes getting ever more truncated as Hill becomes fuelled with the knowledge he’s about to be caught for possession. Then there’s Trainspotting, with its almost faultless placement of Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day.’ As songs go, it’s not one of my favourites, yet when played through the eyes of Mark Renton, smacked up to the hilt and staring blissfully out from the depths of the carpet he’s sank into, there’s no other song to fill that space.

In judging the top five, I’m looking for both tunes that I like and how appropriately they’re used in films. As such, it’s a personal choice, and I imagine your own selection would be quite different. There are even instances of classic tunes in movies I’m not especially fond of e.g. the towering ‘Blue Monday’ ranks as perhaps my all time favourite track, one to play at my funeral (obviously, I’d ask for the 12″ version to keep those fuckers standing around for as long as possible), yet it appears in the saccharine The Wedding Singer, therefore it doesn’t make the list. So here’s what does…

5. ‘Twist and Shout’ The Beatles, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Possibly the high point of Hughes’s teen comedy ouevre, Ferris goes for laughs over navel gazing nearly every time, and in Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), creates a classic comic villain. FBDO is about the eponymous hero taking his best pal and girlfriend for a day in the city whilst throwing a sickie from school, resulting in Rooney going on a relentless and increasingly desperate pursuit. Ferris’s attitude is that if he has to go to such lengths to take a day off, then he may as well live it to the full, resulting in what amounts to the ultimate use of stolen free time. At one point, our hero hijacks a float that’s parading through the city’s streets, and proceeds to regale the crowd with an energetic mime of Twist and Shout. As an affirmation of life’s values, it doesn’t get any better than this, Ferris gurning suitably as the crowds lap it up. Priceless.

4. ‘Love will Tear us Apart’ by Joy Division, from Donnie Darko
The track everyone remembers is Gary Jules’s take on Tears for Fears’ ‘Mad World’, and with ‘The Killing Moon’ by Echo and the Bunnymen providing such a strong opening number, it’s clear this is a film stuffed with the best of the eighties. Tears for Fears pop up again, performing ‘Head over Heels’ whilst the camera prowls around Donnie’s fascist school, and there are strong numbers from Duran Duran and The Dead Green Mummies to enjoy along the way. But nothing quite fits this film better than Joy Division’s finest hour, their one bona fide hit, which reigns supreme over the Darko residence party. As Donnie finds some happiness at last in the arms of Gretchen, Ian Curtis’s doleful lyrics make it quite clear that he might as well enjoy it while he can, because it isn’t going to last…

3.’ABC’ by The Jackson Five, from Clerks II
Possibly Kevin Smith’s most accomplished work contains this scene that comes right out of nowhere. Becky and Dante fancy the pants off each other. Unfortunately, he’s off to Florida the following day to get married to someone else, and then work within his new bride’s family business. Never one to let a drama mushroom into less than a crisis, Dante worries about his inability to dance at the wedding, so Becky takes him up to the roof, gets Jay and Silent Bob to play the above track, and gives him an impromptu lesson. It doesn’t take long before the infectious song invades everyone, from feet-tapping customers, through to people passing who begin a choreographed dance routine of their own. In the meantime, Dante stares at the adorable Becky with an expression of perfect love, a daft grin on his face as the music works its magic.

2. ‘Little Green Bag’ by George Baker Selection, from Reservoir Dogs
I could fill my entire top five with songs from Tarantino movies. QT himself claims that he purposely fits scenes around his chosen tracks, which gives them an appropriateness, a rhythm, that is rarely matched elsewhere. My personal choice is from his first - and for me, his best - film, which notably announced itself with KBILLY, a fake radio station that played nothing but forgotten tunes from the seventies. The one most punters will pick out instantly is ‘Stuck in the middle with you,’ which provides the background for one of Hollywood’s most notorious torture scenes. It’s excellent, and seems effortlessly so, but I think the above is more or less unbeatable, a three-minute slice of bubblegum that accompanies the sight of some very dangerous, identically-dressed men walking down the street. Let’s go to work.

1. ‘Canned Heat’ by Jamiroquai, from Napoleon Dynamite
It’s been argued by certain quarters that Napoleon’s dance triumph is one of this film’s few jarring scenes, a fish out of water within a piece that’s generally downbeat and devoid of the usual cinematic thrills. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a sublime logical conclusion, a nice way of showing how any loser can buck the odds, even briefly. The set up, that Napoleon performs in support of his friend, Pedro’s candidacy for the post of school president, is totally preposterous, yet somehow it fits. Add to that a killer tune, by someone who has generally provided great songs for films as varied as The Devil Wears Prada, and Godzilla. In this instance, it’s simply a superb, uplifting moment, almost the ideal pairing of music and action.