LoC #63: Top 50 Songs from Movies

[wurwolf]

Two-Way Tie for #15: Wig in a Box
49 Points (On 2 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #1 by wurwolf

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/NuItUNFw07g?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/NuItUNFw07g?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Composer/Lyricist: Stephen Trask

Performers: John Cameron Mitchell & cast

 
Description:
"Wig in a Box" is a song from the off-Broadway musical, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and its subsequent film adaptation. It was composed by Stephen Trask and is performed in the musical by the character Hedwig (John Cameron Mitchell) and her band The Angry Inch.

The titular wig in the box is the last present that Hedwig's husband Luther bought her, and the song concerns Hedwig enjoying listening to music and trying on wigs, which enable her to be whomever she wants, empowering her to be "the best you've ever seen". Because the part of the story in which this song appears is set in the late '80s or early '90s, the song contains references to outdated sound recording (and playing) devices.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a 2001 American musical comedy-drama film based on the stage musical of the same title about a fictional rock band fronted by an East German transgender singer. The film was adapted and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, who also portrayed the title role. The music and lyrics are by Stephen Trask. The musical has gathered a devoted cult following.

In 2001, the film won the Best Director and Audience Awards at the Sundance Film Festival as well as Best Directorial Debut from the National Board of Review, the Gotham Awards, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Mitchell received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor and the Premiere magazine "Performance of the Year Award".

[wurwolf]

Two-Way Tie for #15: Beautiful Ride
49 Points (On 2 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #1 by a pretty girl is like

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/8t7wsaZqWkM?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/8t7wsaZqWkM?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Composer/Lyricist: Dan Bern

Performers: John C. Reilly

 
Description:
Singer-songwriters Dan Bern and Mike Viola (of the Candy Butchers) wrote most of the film's songs, including There's a Change a Happenin', Mulatto, A Life Without You (Is No Life At All), Beautiful Ride and Hole in My Pants. The song, Beautiful Ride takes place at the end of the film, with Dewey Cox performing at his own tribute concert; this song is a reflection of his life and times.

A number of critics noted the unusually high quality of many of the individual songs on the soundtrack; how well they reflected the styles and times they were attempting to spoof and how well they stood on their own as quality compositions. The soundtrack was nominated for both a Grammy and Golden Globe Award and was nominated and won the Sierra Award for Best Song in a Motion Picture from the Las Vegas Film Critics Society.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a 2007 music comedy film written and produced by Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan, directed by Kasdan and starring John C. Reilly. The plot echoes the storyline of 2005's Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line; Walk Hard is also a parody of the biopic genre as a whole.

As Walk Hard heavily references the film Walk the Line, the Dewey Cox persona is mostly based on Johnny Cash; but the character also includes elements of the lives and careers of Roy Orbison, Glen Campbell, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Donovan, John Lennon, James Brown, Jim Morrison, and Neil Diamond. The film also directly lampoons artists Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Elvis Presley and The Beatles, in addition to some artists playing themselves, including Eddie Vedder and Ghostface Killah. In addition, the film parodies or pays tribute to the musical styles of Bob Dylan, David Bowie and the seventies punk rock movement.

[wurwolf]

A two-way tie because two dummies cancelled each other out by flipping their #1 and #2 picks. 

[wurwolf]

#14: In Your Eyes
50 Points (On 3 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #1 by Cole Stratton


Movie scene:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/-j379JbL-xM?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/-j379JbL-xM?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

Entire song:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zrzr4R3LpsQ?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/Zrzr4R3LpsQ?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: Say Anything...

Composer/Lyricist: Peter Gabriel

Performer: Peter Gabriel

 
Description:
Say Anything... is a 1989 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe. It was Crowe's directorial debut. In 2002, Entertainment Weekly ranked Say Anything... as the greatest modern movie romance, and it was ranked number 11 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 best high-school movies.

"In Your Eyes" is a song by British musician Peter Gabriel from his 1986 album So with Youssou N'Dour singing some choruses translated into his native Wolof. It reached #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks and #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November, 1986. It was not released as a single in the UK. However, Gabriel did release two extended versions of the song as a 12" vinyl single in the US.

The song was used twice in the 1989 US Cameron Crowe film, Say Anything..., as well as in its trailer. An iconic scene from the film occurs when broken-hearted Lloyd Dobler (John Cusak) serenades his ex-girlfriend, Diane Court (Ione Skye), outside her bedroom window by holding a boombox up above his head and playing the song for her. Repopularized by its usage in the film, the song reentered the US charts but narrowly failed to crack the top 40 in its second run, reaching as high as #41. Peter Gabriel asked to see Crowe's film and Crowe asked the production company to send Gabriel a rough cut. Gabriel approved the use of his song, but told Crowe that he was uneasy about the overdose of the main character at the end; the studio had erroneously sent Gabriel the film Wired instead.

The song's use in that iconic scene has been parodied in popular satirical shows. In the American Dad episode "It's Good to Be Queen", Stan Smith, in an attempt to get Francine to forgive him, forces Gabriel Byrne — whom he mistakenly believes to be Peter Gabriel — to sing "In Your Eyes" while holding the actor above his head. In the South Park episode "Raisins", when Wendy breaks up with Stan, Bebe tells him to hold up a boombox playing Peter Gabriel outside Wendy's window, to try to win her back. Instead of playing "In Your Eyes," he plays Gabriel's decidedly unromantic "Shock the Monkey".

The song was also briefly used during an August 2006 episode of The Daily Show in a Toss segment to The Colbert Report, in which Stephen Colbert holds up a boombox in an attempt to stop Jon Stewart skipping to the next segment.

[wurwolf]

#13: Live and Let Die
52 Points (On 3 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #4 by George Harrison


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/swVoXHVW-jI?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/swVoXHVW-jI?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: Live and Let Die

Composer/Lyricist: Paul McCartney

Performer: Paul McCartney & Wings

 
Description:
Live and Let Die (1973) is the eighth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond.

The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, a Harlem drug lord known as Mr. Big plans to distribute two tons of heroin free to put rival drug barons out of business. Mr. Big, however, is revealed to be the disguised alter ego of Dr. Kananga, a corrupt Caribbean dictator, who rules San Monique, the fictional island where the heroin poppies are secretly farmed. Bond is investigating the death of three British agents, leading him to Kananga, where he is soon trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to the drug baron's scheme.

Live and Let Die was released during the height of the blaxploitation era, and many blaxploitation archetypes and clichés are depicted in the film, including afro hairstyles, derogatory racial epithets ("honky"), black gangsters, and "pimpmobiles" [okay, Wikipedia]. It departs from the former plots of the James Bond films about megalomaniac super-villains, and instead focuses on drug trafficking, depicted primarily in blaxploitation films. It is set in African American cultural centres such as Harlem and New Orleans, as well as the Caribbean Islands. It was also the first James Bond film featuring an African American Bond girl to be romantically involved with 007, Rosie Carver, who was played by Gloria Hendry. Despite mixed reviews, the film was a box office success and was nominated for an Academy Award.

John Barry, who had worked in the previous five themes and orchestrated the James Bond theme, was unavailable. So Broccoli and Saltzman went after Paul McCartney for him to write the theme song. Since McCartney's salary was high and another composer could not be hired with the remainder of the music budget, George Martin, who had been McCartney's producer while with The Beatles, was chosen to write the score.

"Live and Let Die", written by Paul and his wife Linda McCartney and performed by Paul and his group, Wings, was the first true rock and roll song used to open a Bond film, and became a major success in the U.S. (#2 for three weeks) and the UK (#9). It remains arguably one of the most well-known pieces of Bond-related music other than the series theme. For many years the song was a highlight of McCartney's live shows, complete with fireworks and lasers, and in 2005, it was performed live by McCartney during the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX. In 1991 the song was covered by the American rock band Guns N' Roses.

[ScottotD]

#14: In Your Eyes
50 Points (On 3 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #1 by Cole Stratton


Movie scene:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/-j379JbL-xM?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/-j379JbL-xM?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

My #3, well played Mr Stratton

[wurwolf]

#12: Moon River
54 Points (On 3 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #6 by Johnny Unusual


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/9J1OcKd_Dqw?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/9J1OcKd_Dqw?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: Breakfast At Tiffany's

Composer/Lyricist: Johnny Mercer & Henry Mancini

Performer: Audrey Hepburn

 
Description:
"Moon River" is a song composed by Johnny Mercer (lyrics) and Henry Mancini (music) in 1961, for whom it won that year's Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was originally sung in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's by Audrey Hepburn, although it has been covered by many other artists. The song also won the 1962 Grammy Award for Record of the Year.

The success of the song was responsible for relaunching Mercer's career as a songwriter, which had stalled in the mid-1950s because rock and roll replaced jazz standards as the popular music of the time. An inlet near Savannah, Georgia, Johnny Mercer's hometown, was named Moon River in honor of him and this song. The popularity of the song is such that it has been used as a test sample in a study on people's memories of popular songs. Comments about the song have noted that it is particularly reminiscent of Mercer's youth in the Southern United States.

Mercer and Mancini wrote "Moon River" for Audrey Hepburn to fit her vocal range. Initially, the lyrics started, "I'm Holly, like I want to be / like Holly on a tree back home ..."; however, they were later changed to fit the theme of the film Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Although an instrumental version is played over the film's opening titles, the lyrics are first heard in a scene where Paul "Fred" Varjak (George Peppard) discovers Holly Golightly (Hepburn) singing them, accompanied by her guitar, on the fire escape outside their apartments.

There was an eruption of much behind-the-scenes consternation when a Paramount Pictures executive, Martin Rackin, suggested deleting the song from the film immediately after a very successful San Francisco preview. Hepburn's reaction was described by Mancini and others in degrees varying from her saying "over my dead body" to her using somewhat more colorful language to make the same point.

Hepburn's version was not included in the original movie soundtrack. Instead, an album version recorded by Mancini and his chorus was released as a single and became a number 11 hit. In different versions, Joel Whitburn's Top Adult (Contemporary) Songs reported the song as a #3 or #1 easy listening hit, due to unpublished charts in Billboard. Only months after Hepburn's death in 1993 her version was released on an album titled Music from the Films of Audrey Hepburn.

[Tripe]

Walk Hard? More like Blows Hard.

So you're saying you don't want no part of that shit?

[wurwolf]

Walk Hard? More like Blows Hard.

So you're saying you don't want no part of that shit?

IT'S NON-ADDICTIVE.

[wurwolf]

#11: (Don't You) Forget About Me
54 Points (On 3 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #4 by Smoky


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y_9sB92dJzM?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/Y_9sB92dJzM?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: Breakfast Club

Composer/Lyricist: Keith Forsey & Steve Schiff

Performer: Simple Minds

 
Description:
"Don't You (Forget About Me)" is a 1985 song performed by the band Simple Minds known for its being in the soundtrack to the film The Breakfast Club. The songwriters were producer Keith Forsey (who won an Oscar for "Flashdance... What a Feeling") and Steve Schiff (guitarist and songwriter from the Nina Hagen band). Aside from its initial appearance in The Breakfast Club, the song has been featured in various media throughout the years, and has been covered and sampled by a number of artists.

Forsey asked Cy Curnin from The Fixx, Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol to record the song, but all three declined; Idol would later perform a cover of it on his 2001 greatest hits compilation. Schiff then suggested Forsey ask the Scottish New Wave band Simple Minds, who initially refused as well, but then agreed under the encouragement of their label, A&M. According to one account, the band "rearranged and recorded 'Don’t You (Forget About Me)' in three hours in a north London studio and promptly forgot about it."

Continuing the rock direction recently taken on Sparkle in the Rain but also glancing back at their melodic synthpop past, it caught the band at their commercial peak and, propelled by the success of The Breakfast Club, became a number-one hit in the U.S. and around the world. It is the band's only number-one hit on the U.S. Top Rock Tracks chart, staying atop for three weeks. While only reaching number seven in the UK, it stayed on the charts from 1985–1987, one of the longest time spans for any single in the history of the chart.

Despite its success, the band continued to dismiss the song, the most obvious slight being its absence from their subsequent album Once Upon a Time. It eventually appeared on the 1992 best-of Glittering Prize 81/92.

The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American coming of age comedy-drama film written and directed by John Hughes. The storyline follows five teenagers (each a member of a different high school clique) as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes.

Critically, it is considered to be one of the greatest high school films of all time, as well as one of Hughes' most memorable and recognizable works.

[wurwolf]

That's it for today, everyone. Tomorrow -- your top ten!

[a pretty girl is like]

Walk Hard should have been a multiple Academy Award winning film.  It is so much more watchable and honest than the music biopics that it skewers. 

The songs are brilliant.  Brilliant!

[Johnny Unusual]

Didn't think to vote for any Walk Hard songs, but I probably would have gone with the title track.  Still, beautiful ride is a pretty great choice.

[Tripe]

Walk Hard? More like Blows Hard.

So you're saying you don't want no part of that shit?

I saw it once and didn't think it was funny. I wanted to.  I just didn't.

Somebody post the scene so my reference is explained please.

[a pretty girl is like]

Also there is too much McCartney on this list now.