It's finally feeling a little bit like fall, here. We just turned the heater on, so the house smells a little burnt-dusty. Candies are ready for the trick-or-treaters. I wonder if we'll get any?
And, now for our final look this year at Halloween music. Last week was spent looking at some of my favorite animated music, today I'm going to look at some of my favorite live-action film music. And, like I did with the cartoons, I'm going to go all chronological on you.
As I've looked at Halloween music this month, both here and on my FaceBook page, Puttin' on the Ritz was one of the songs I posted. This was the pop version, sung by Taco, an Indonesian-born Dutch singer who had a career in Germany. But, now I want to look at another version of the 1929 Irving Berlin masterpiece. Introduced in the 1930 film titled, Puttin' on the Ritz and has been recorded as a swing song, (duh!) Jazz, synthpop, heavy metal, and was even covered by Alvin & the Chipmunks. (Now, that's scary!) But the version that I love the most is the version that the Nameless Cynic will consent to sing with me. That's right, we rock it Young Franken-style! Young Frankenstein has been turned into a Broadway musical, and this scene now has parts for Igor and just about everybody, but I still love this one!
This brings us to either 1955 or 1988, depending on how you want to look at it, and Harry Belafonte singing Day-O (The Banana boat Song), which was reprised for Beetlejuice. Reading up on the movie, it went through a lot of changes before becoming the heart-warming classic that we all know and love. Tim Burton, the director, had originally wanted Sammy Davis, Jr, to be the title character. (That would have been a much different movie!) Harry Belefonte's music is a recurring theme in the movie, and this is my favorite.
If you were counting 1955 for the last song, then we are continuing to movie forward. If you were counting from the movie's release date, then we are experiencing some retrograde motion, as we find ourselves in 1984, for a song that the lead singer didn't even like. He is supposed to have refused to sing the title of the movie in the course of the theme song. Poor man. He did have his 15 minutes, but he is best remembered for this song.
Which brings us to 1986 and Labyrinth, directed by Jim Hensen. This is my favorite song from the movie, and it was written and performed by David Bowie.
I read that there were over 40 puppets in that scene, plus livestock and actors: it must have been incredibly complex to film, and remains my favorite scene. Well, except for the Escher-esque stairs scene, and the scene with Ludo, and the scene where. . . you get the idea: I love that movie!
(I used the scene from the movie here, but, since this was the mid-80s and MTV was incredibly popular, there were two official videos released, to capitalize on the fact that David Bowie was performing in large portions of the soundtrack: As the World Falls Down, from the ballroom scene, and Underground, which played over the closing credits.)
I thought I was done, and then I remembered one more song, this one from 1988's Practical Magic. Midnight Margaritas! I was surprised to find that this song actually entitled Coconut, was written and recorded by Harry Nilsson. While many of us comment or joke about the 3 or 4 chord rock song, this one has only 1 chord. (A C7th, if you care.) Now that's scary!
So, there you have it. None of it particularly frightening, not all of it particularly well-sung. But, I hope, fun.
Happy Halloween!
No comments:
Post a Comment