It was either 3 or 4 years ago that I first heard this song playing over the end credits of an episode of The Sopranos. Other than recognizing the iconic and deadpan twang of the late William S. Burroughs, I had absolutely no idea who performed this song or even what the song’s title was.
However, this previous Christmas, I received a copy of The Sopranos: A Family History from my sister Erin and as I was reading through it last night, I came across a reference to the very song. I discovered that the name of the song was “Seven Souls” and that it was performed by an “experimental” group called Material.
I then proceeded to do even more extensive, deep-digging research and … well, okay, to be honest, I’m lazy so I just looked it up on Wikipedia. And according to Wikipedia, Seven Souls was released in 1990 and it features William S. Burroughs reading passages from his book The Western Lands.
Anyway, here it is…”Seven Souls” by Material and William S. Burroughs…
The Academy has released a list of the 41 songs that they have determined are “eligible” for an Oscar nomination next year. Considering how this year has gone, I shouldn’t be surprised that the songs that I really liked (like “Kick Ass” from Kick Ass and “End Credits” from Harry Brown) have not been deemed eligible.
Anyway, via Awards Daily, here’s the complete list of the eligible songs:
“Alice” from “Alice in Wonderland”
“Forever One Love” from “Black Tulip”
“Freedom Song” from “Black Tulip”
“Bound to You” from “Burlesque”
“Welcome to Burlesque” from “Burlesque”
“You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” from “Burlesque”
“There’s a Place for Us” from “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”
“Coming Home” from “Country Strong”
“Me and Tennessee” from “Country Strong”
“Despicable Me” from “Despicable Me”
“Prettiest Girls” from “Despicable Me”
“Dear Laughing Doubters” from “Dinner for Schmucks”
“Better Days” from “Eat Pray Love”
“If You Run” from “Going the Distance”
“Darkness before the Dawn” from “Holy Rollers”
“Sticks & Stones” from “How to Train Your Dragon”
“Le Gris” from “Idiots and Angels”
“Chanson Illusionist” from “The Illusionist”
“Never Say Never” from “The Karate Kid”
“To the Sky” from “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole”
“What If” from “Letters to Juliet”
“Life during Wartime” from “Life during Wartime”
“Made in Dagenham” from “Made in Dagenham”
“Little One” from “Mother and Child”
“Be the One” from “The Next Three Days”
“If I Rise” from “127 Hours”
“When You See Forever” from “The Perfect Game”
“I Remain” from “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”
“Dream Big” from “Pure Country 2: The Gift”
“How I Love You” from “Ramona and Beezus”
“Darling I Do” from “Shrek Forever After”
“Noka Oi” from “Six Days in Paradise”
“This Is a Low” from “Tamara Drewe”
“I See the Light” from “Tangled”
“Rise” from “3 Billion and Counting”
“We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3″
“Eclipse: All Yours” from “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”
“Nothing” from “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too”
“A Better Life” from “Unbeaten”
“Shine” from “Waiting for ‘Superman’”
“The Reasons Why” from “Wretches & Jabberers”
I saw Burlesque with my friend Evelyn earlier tonight (hi, Evelyn!) and even though the movie was pretty silly, we ended up singing our own version of “Bound to You” for three hours afterward.
I also thought that “Better Days” from Eat Pray Love and “Dear Laughing Doubters” from Dinner For Schmucks were both perfect examples of good songs written for rather disappointing movies.
Still, I’m sad to see that “Pimps Don’t Cry” won’t be getting a chance to bring The Other Guys some Oscar glory.
So, of course, me being the little contrarian that I am, I had to stick my big Italian nose into it all and comment about how much I hate The Shawshank Redemption and about how Stephen King is an insecure whore. And this, of course, led to all of the boys fighting over whether or not The Mist had a good ending.
Anyway, I’ve already taken my side in the argument, which is that The Mist had a terrible ending but that terrible ending was scored with a really good and haunting song.
And here that song is : The Host of Seraphim by Dead Can Dance.
Some day, I’m going to make and publish a list that will entitled “Top Ten Songs To Dance To While Wasted.” Until I get around to that, I’ll just take a few minutes to highlight the song that would probably come in at number 3 — Hey Boy Hey Girl by the Chemical Brothers.
I really wanted to put up the music video that features the kids in the museum and the skeletons having sex in the public restroom. However, every version of that to be found on YouTube comes with one of those really annoying “embedding disabled by request” tags. Bleh on that.
So, I’m including two videos. The first one is simply the song as it appears on 1999’s Surrender. The second is a clip of the Chemical Brothers doing the song live at Glastonbury in 2007. Personally, I love the 2nd clip. If you ever get a chance to see the Chemical Brothers live, you must take it as surely as you must breathe oxygen to live.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Joe D’Amato’s haunting 1979 romance Beyond The Darkness. Not only is it one of the best Italian films ever (and the best film ever directed by D’Amato) but I think it’s also one of the best films ever made.
One reason the film is so effective is because of its soundtrack, which was composed and performed by (who else?) Goblin. The music will be familiar to any Italian horror fan, largely because it was reused by about a thousand other movies that came out in the years after Beyond The Darkness. (Director Bruno Mattei, in particular, was fond of it.)
Today is November 9th. I’m 25 years old today and I don’t want to talk about it. Bleh. Instead, let’s just play one of the greatest songs ever written, Gimme Shelter.
Gimme Shelter is one of those songs that seems to turn up in every fourth movie that I watch and it’s easy to tell why. It’s a great song. Despite the apocalyptic subject matter, this is an undeniably exhilirating song. This is a song that makes my heart beat faster every time I hear it. If I ever happen to total my car again, it’ll probably be because I was listening to this song while driving. If I ever make out my list of top ten songs to fuck make love fuck to, Gimme Shelter will be at the top of the list along with Blondie’s Atomic, Siouxsie and the Banshee’s Kiss Them For Me, and every song on Moby’s Play CD.
Is it possible that Gimme Shelter is the greatest song of all time?
Seeing as how we’re coming up on Halloween (yay!), how about a little Warren Zevon? I love Werewolves of London but I think everyone on the planet has already heard that song a few thousands times. So, how about Excitable Boy?
By the way, the video today features scenes from Mary Harron’s American Psycho and was originally posted to Youtube by a person who goes by the name of TonyFuckingMagnum.
Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best Excitable boy, they all said And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest Excitable boy, they all said Well, he’s just an excitable boy
He took in the four a.m. show at the Clark Excitable boy, they all said And he bit the usherette’s leg in the dark Excitable boy, they all said Well, he’s just an excitable boy
He took little Susie to the Junior Prom Excitable boy, they all said and he raped her and killed her, then he took her home Excitable boy, they all said Well, he’s just an excitable boy After ten long years they let him out of the Home Excitable boy, they all said And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones Excitable boy, they all said Well, he’s just an excitable boy
Four years ago, I was in Recycle Books in Denton, Texas and I came across a book called something like “Unknown Legends of Rock and Roll.” The book came with a CD that featured music by some of the bands featured in that book. The first song on that CD (and my personal favorite) was Smashed Blocked, a song from a band called John’s Children.
In 1978, just based on what I’ve read, everyone in America was regularly doing huge amounts of cocaine. Whether you were in a disco or at a PTA meeting, you knew that eventually someone would produce a small mirror covered with white powder. President Carter even snorted it during that year’s State of the Union speech. Sure, some people used gold spoons and others had to make do with a one dollar bill but, in the end, cocaine brought all Americans together as a nation and helped the country heal after the trauma of Watergate.
It also contributed to some the year’s best films. Days of Heaven, Superman, The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, Grease, Animal House, Interiors, Halloween, Midnight Express, Convoy, Go Tell The Spartans, and An Unmarried Woman; these were all films fueled by the Peruvian Headache Powder.
However, no discussion of 1978 cocaine-fueled films would be complete with mentioning Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Featuring songs originally performed by the Beatles and starring the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, and a whole bunch of other people that my mom liked, Sgt. Pepper’s is a film that, quite honestly, should just be retitled 1978.
Plotwise — oh God, do I really have to try to describe the plot? Seriously, this could take forever. I mean, the film isn’t quite two hours long but a lot of stuff happens and really the only connection between any of it is that these odd cover tunes of classic Beatles songs keep popping up in the weirdest places. Okay, let me try to get this all into one paragraph —
There’s a small town called Heartland that is very small and simple but it’s also the home of the legendary Sgt. Pepper who, throughout history, has maintained world peace by playing his magic instruments. But then Sgt. Pepper dies and apparently turns into a gold weather vane. His magic instruments are given to the mayor of Heartland, Mr. Kite (George Burns, who also narrates the entire movie). The world is in mourning. But then one day, the Henderson Brothers (the Bee Gees) decide to form a new Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and they invite Sgt. Pepper’s grandson, Billy Shears (played by Peter Frampton) to be their lead singer. Heartland rejoices and George Burns has a surprisingly sweet scene where he sings Fixing A Hole.
Anyway, the new band is such a hit that the owner of a record company invites them to come to Los Angeles and record an album. Billy says goodbye to his girlfriend, Strawberry Fields (Sandy Farina) and then joins the Hendersons in a hot air balloon which promptly leaves for California. En route, the balloon collides with an airplane but nobody is seriously injured.
In Los Angeles, they meet the record company owner and it turns out that he’s played by Donald Pleasence. (It’s interesting to think that Pleasence filmed this and Halloween around the same time.) Pleasence proceeds to sing the creepiest version of I Want You ever heard. I’d include a clip of the performance but Pleasence manages to go on for a good ten minutes, repeating “I want you,” in an odd little voice while staring at Peter Frampton.
The boys sign a contract with Pleasence. Billy Shears is led astray by Lucy and her band, the Diamonds. (Guess which song they get to sing.) Somehow, this allows Mean Mr. Mustard to steal Sgt. Pepper’s magic instruments. Mr. Mustard drives around in a yellow van and he’s assisted by two female robots who, at one point, sing She’s Leaving Home in their electronic, robot voices.
The band is informed that the instruments have been stolen. Outraged, they jump back in their hot air balloon and quickly start a recovery operation. It turns out that Mean Mr. Mustard has given the instruments to three separate villains.
The first villain is Dr. Maxwell Edison who uses his silver hammer to turn old people into boy scouts. This may sound ludicrous and silly but fortunately, Maxwell is played by Steve Martin. His cameo is one of the highlights of the film, if just because he seems to be one of the few people who actually enjoyed himself on set.
The second villain is the Reverend Sun. He brainwashes people or something. I’ve seen this movie a few times and I still can’t quite figure out what Reverend Sun’s deal is. When I first saw this movie, I got excited because I thought that Tom Savini was playing Rev. Sun. Then I forced my sister Erin to watch the movie and she told me I was stupid because Rev. Sun was obviously being played by Frank Zappa. Well, I did some reasearch and discovered that we’re both stupid. That’s neither Savini nor Zappa. It’s Alice Cooper.
The final villains are played by a very young (and very, very hot!) Aerosmith. Here, they are called the Future Villain Band and oh my God, Joe Perry…this film needed a lot more Joe Perry. I mean, it’s understandable that Steve Tyler gets most of the screen time and young Steve actually looks pretty good in a Mick Jagger sort of way but Joe Perry…Oh. My. God. Anyway, Aerosmith does a cover of Come Together and Joe Perry circa 1978 was just so freaking gorgeous, oh my God. Eventually, Frampton and the Bee Gees come along and ruin things by getting into a fight with Steve Tyler which leads to the camera constantly cutting away from Joe Perry who is really, really, really hot and all kinds of sexy in this movie. They should have just called this movie Joe Perry. Oh. My. God.
Uhmm, where was I? Oh yeah — so, anyway, eventually the weather vane comes to life and suddenly, Sgt. Pepper’s a black man who sings Get Back and ends up magically resetting the past and turning Mean Mr. Mustard into an altar boy or something like that. Oh, and the Bee Gee who looks like a New Age healer ends up singing my favorite Beatles song, A Day in the Life.
Finally, it appears that every single person on the planet shows up in the film’s final scene where a huge group of “stars” show up and sing the film’s title tune one last time. In the end credits, these people are listed as being “Our Guests At Heartland.” Doing some research (i.e., looking the thing up in Wikipedia), I’ve discovered that these folks were apparently all pop cultural icons in the 70s. I didn’t recognize a single one of them but I’m sure they probably all snorted a lot of cocaine.
(And, by the way, Joe Perry does not get to return for the finale so bleh on you, movie.)
For some reason, this movie kept showing up on Starz last November and that’s where I first discovered it. The first time I saw it, I came in right at the start of Steve Martin’s cameo and the film itself was so just plain weird that I had to jump on twitter and let the world know what I was watching. (Actually, it doesn’t take much to make me jump on twitter and tell the world what I’m doing.) As a result, I soon discovered that, apparently, I was the only person on the planet who didn’t know about this film.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is really a pretty bad movie. The plot tries way too hard, the pacing is terrible with some scenes lasting forever and others ending before they really start, and Frampton and the Bee Gees are all distinguished by an utter lack of charisma. The youngest Bee Gee appears to be cheerfully stoned throughout the entire movie while the other two (and Frampton) are trying way too hard to act.
And yet, the film fascinates me. After I saw it the first time, I forced my sister to watch it with me a second time. I then watched it again on my own. Finally, I went down to the local Fry’s and nearly did a happy little dance when I found it on DVD. I’ve watched it since several times. Whenever I’m depressed, it always cheers me up.
What’s the appeal? Some of it is definitely the whole “so-bad-its-good” thing. Actually, that’s probably most of it. Another thing fascinating thing is how literally the filmmakers choose to interpret the Beatles lyrics. Considering the fact that the Beatles themselves were rather open about the fact that a lot of their lyrics were simply nonsense and word games, it’s interesting to try to understand logic behind trying to force them into a coherent storyline. (This is also the appeal of 2007’s Across The Universe, which is technically a better movie than Sgt. Pepper’s but isn’t half as fun to watch.) For instance, Billy Shears isn’t in the film because he’s an interesting character. Instead, he’s just here because — 10 years earlier — either John Lennon or Paul McCartney choose to toss the name into a song. We’re never quite sure what Mean Mr. Mustard’s dastardly motivation is beyond the fact that the filmmakers had the rights to his song. If nothing else, the film is an interesting example of what happens when people try to create a novel out of somebody else’s short story.
However, I think the main appeal of Sgt. Pepper’s is the appeal of 1978. Watching the movie, you feel almost as if you’re literally sitting beside the cast at Studio 54, watching as everyone snorts a line. I think that, for future historians, this film may very well turn out to be a cinematic Rosetta Stone.
Then again, maybe it really is just so bad that it’s good.
