LoC #63: Top 50 Songs from Movies

[wurwolf]

Do songs played over the end credits count? That's the only place the song actually played, to my knowledge.

Was "A View to a Kill" played in the actual movie?

[a pretty girl is like]

#26: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You

Hold on a minute. That wasn't ever played in the movie.

End credits are part of a movie.

[goflyblind]

#26: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You

Hold on a minute. That wasn't ever played in the movie.

End credits are part of a movie.

no they're not, they're a whole different chapter on the dvd!

[Tripe]

Yeah my #30 was the cover of 99 Problems that plays out the remake of Fright Night.

[a pretty girl is like]

#26: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You

Hold on a minute. That wasn't ever played in the movie.

End credits are part of a movie.

no they're not, they're a whole different chapter on the dvd!

What?

[wurwolf]

Do songs played over the end credits count? That's the only place the song actually played, to my knowledge.

Was "A View to a Kill" played in the actual movie?

Orchestrally, yes.  Otherwise no, but the opening sequences of Bond movies are kind of a weird different thing.  Most people sit through them, unlike end credits.  It's your call, but I think it's a bit of a stretch.

It is probably a bit of a stretch. Ideally I would have liked to have songs that are featured in the movie, that forever make you think about a particular scene when you hear the song. But, on the other side of the coin, there are songs that are inextricably linked with a movie, whether the song actually takes place during the scenes or not. I think both are valid.

Fortunately, there are only three instances on this list (I think) where this occurs, so I'm just going to leave it.

[Mrs. Dick Courier]

Oh Bryan Adams.....swoon.

Almost chose "Have you ever really loved a woman" like that song more, but don't like the movie its in.

Oh, and the orchestra version is played in the movie.

[wurwolf]

#24: Misirlou
39 Points (On 3 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #8 by Pak-Man


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/D5OHrQYwRac?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/D5OHrQYwRac?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: Pulp Fiction

Composer/Lyricist: Traditional

Performer: Dick Dale and the Deltones

 
Description:
"Misirlou" is a folk song dating back to 1927, originally as a Greek rebetiko composition influenced by Middle Eastern music. The song then gained popularity among Middle Eastern audiences through Arabic (belly dancing), Jewish (klezmer) and Turkish versions.

The song eventually gained worldwide popularity through Dick Dale's 1962 American surf rock version, which was responsible for popularizing the song in Western popular culture. Various versions have since been recorded, including other surf and rock versions by bands such as The Beach Boys and The Ventures as well as international orchestral easy listening (exotica) versions by musicians such as Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman. Dick Dale's surf rock version later gained renewed popularity through its use in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction.

Directed in a highly stylized manner, Pulp Fiction connects the intersecting storylines of Los Angeles mobsters, fringe players, small-time criminals, and a mysterious briefcase. Considerable screen time is devoted to conversations and monologues that reveal the characters' senses of humor and perspectives on life. The film's title refers to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue. Pulp Fiction is self-referential from its opening moments, beginning with a title card that gives two dictionary definitions of "pulp". The plot, as in many of Tarantino's other works, is presented out of chronological sequence.

No film score was composed for Pulp Fiction, with Quentin Tarantino instead using an eclectic assortment of surf music, rock and roll, soul, and pop songs. Dick Dale's rendition of "Misirlou" plays during the opening credits. Tarantino chose surf music as the basic musical style for the film, but not, he insists, because of its association with surfing culture: "To me it just sounds like rock and roll, even Morricone music. It sounds like rock and roll spaghetti Western music."

[wurwolf]

#23: The Touch
41 Points (On 2 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #3 by Pak-Man
http://forum.rifftrax.com/index.php?topic=25748.msg746687#msg746687

[a pretty girl is like]

#23: The Touch
41 Points (On 2 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #3 by Pak-Man
http://forum.rifftrax.com/index.php?topic=25748.msg746687#msg746687

Shit, this shit jumped up like twenty spots.  Impressive.

[wurwolf]

#23: The Touch
41 Points (On 2 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #3 by Pak-Man
http://forum.rifftrax.com/index.php?topic=25748.msg746687#msg746687

Shit, this shit jumped up like twenty spots.  Impressive.

Yeah, it was at #18 on that one list, and then when I flipped it the song was actually #8.

[wurwolf]

#22: Wise Up
42 Points (On 3 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #6 by George Harrison


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/dcIs3rAEytk?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/dcIs3rAEytk?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: Magnolia

Composer/Lyricist: Aimee Mann

Performer: Aimee Man

 
Description:
Magnolia is a 1999 American drama film written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, narrated by Ricky Jay, and starring Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, and Jason Robards in his last feature film appearance. The film is a mosaic of interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

Magnolia was a critical success. Of the ensemble cast, Tom Cruise was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 72nd Academy Awards, and won the award in the same category at the Golden Globes of 2000. Anderson has stated, "I really feel... That Magnolia is, for better or worse, the best movie I'll ever make."

Anderson met Aimee Mann in 1996 when he asked her husband, Michael Penn, to write songs for his film, Hard Eight. Mann had songs on soundtracks before but never "utilized in such an integral way" she said in an interview. She gave Anderson rough mixes of songs and found that they both wrote about the same kinds of characters. He encouraged her to write songs for the film by sending her a copy of the script.

Two songs were written expressly for the film: "You Do," which was based on a character later cut from the film, and "Save Me," which closes the film; the latter was nominated in the 2000 Academy Awards and Golden Globes and in the 2001 Grammys. Most of the remaining seven Mann songs were demos and works in progress; "Wise Up," which is at the center of a sequence in which all of the characters sing the song, was originally written for the 1996 film Jerry Maguire. At the time Mann's record label had refused to release her songs on an album.

[wurwolf]

#21: Over the Rainbow
42 Points (On 4 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #8 by wurwolf


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/U016JWYUDdQ?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/U016JWYUDdQ?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

 
Featured In: The Wizard of Oz

Composer/Lyricist: Harold Arlen & E. Y. Harburg

Performer: Judy Garland

 
Description:
"Over the Rainbow" (often referred to as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow") is a classic Academy Award-winning ballad song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. "Yip" Harburg. It was written for the 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz, and was sung by actress Judy Garland in her starring role as Dorothy Gale. Over time it would become Garland's signature song.

In the film, part of the song is played by the MGM orchestra over the opening credits. About five minutes into the movie, actress Judy Garland playing the lead character, Dorothy, sings "Over the Rainbow" after unsuccessfully trying to get her aunt and uncle to listen to her relate an unpleasant incident involving her dog, Toto, and the nasty spinster, Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton). Dorothy's Aunt Em tells her to "find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble", prompting Dorothy to walk off by herself. She muses to Toto "Someplace where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat, or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain.....", and begins singing the song. The famous sequence itself, as well as the entirety of the Kansas scenes, was directed (though uncredited) by King Vidor.

The song is number one of the "Songs of the Century" list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The American Film Institute also ranked "Over the Rainbow" the greatest movie song of all time on the list of "AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs". It was adopted (along with Irving Berlin's "White Christmas") by American troops in Europe in World War II as a symbol of the United States--in fact, Garland even performed the song for American troops as part of a 1943 command performance.

The song was initially deleted from the film after a preview in San Luis Obispo, because MGM chief executive Louis B. Mayer and producer Mervyn LeRoy thought the song "slowed down the picture" and that "the song sounds like something for Jeanette MacDonald, not for a little girl singing in a barnyard". The persistence of associate producer Arthur Freed and Garland's vocal coach/mentor Roger Edens to keep the song in the picture paid off.

[wurwolf]

And we're all caught up. Tomorrow, ten more and then on Tuesday, the top ten.

[Pak-Man]

#21: Over the Rainbow
42 Points (On 4 of 19 lists)
Highest Placement: #8 by wurwolf

Can't believe I didn't think of this one. Especially since I have a different song about rainbows. (And what's on the other side...)