Today, I arrived home to the sad news that Ennio Morricone, the world’s greatest composer, had passed away at the age of 91. Morricone was responsible for so many classic film scores that it’s hard to know where to begin. I imagine I’ll be sharing a lot of his music over the next couple of days. Some of it will be familiar and hopefully, some of it will inspire our readers to seek out some of his lesser known scores.
For now, I’d like to share one of my favorite Morricone compositions. This is Deborah’s Theme from Sergio Leone’s 1984 gangster epic, Once Upon A Time In America.
Along with their “official” videos, Saint Motel also frequently releases videos for alternate versions of their songs. This is for the acoustic version of Save Me, which can be found on The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack album.
This video description on YouTube offers up only one credit — which is “cinematography by Mario Contini.” I know that A/J Jackson is usually credited for directing the group’s videos (and, of course, he’s the band’s lead singer as well) but since I don’t have any official listing for a director, I’m just going to leave that credit blank.
Mario Contini, according the imdb, has worked on several music videos, including ones by Lady Gaga, Post Malone, and Muse. I like the look of this video. The band certainly has a talent for finding good locations in which to be filmed performing.
Despite what some sites on the internet would have you believe, this song was not written for a Batman film. It was featured in 1995’s Batman Forever but it was not actually written for the movie. Instead, the song was first written in 1987 and then it was first recorded and released in 1994. When it was first released as a single, it didn’t get much attention and it quickly fell out of the charts. Then it was featured during the end credits of Batman Forever and it was re-released and promoted with this Joel Schumacher-directed video and it became a huge hit. This is one of those songs that will never die. As long as there are weddings and funerals, this song will live. As long as there are comedy shows that want to do over-the-top falling-in-love montages, this song will live forever.
I used to know a guy who would sing this song every Saturday night for karaoke and, every single time, he would start crying about halfway through the song. When I asked him why the song always made him cry, he replied, “Showmanship.” I’m not really sure what happened to him, as it’s been more than a while since I last went to any sort of karaoke night. I hope he’s okay, wherever he is. The world of karaoke can be very competitive and ruthless. Someone should make a movie about it. It would probably have a really good soundtrack.
