Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Top 10 Songs I Only Like Because of a Movie, TV Show, or Commercial

10. "God Moving Over The Face Of The Water" by Moby from Everything Is Wrong



Heat felt about 5 hours longer than it needed to be, and the final scene featuring Al Pacino holding the hand of a dying Robert Deniro was kind of...weird. But the music was good.

I wanted to post a video of Heat's final scene, but embedding is disabled. You can watch it here. The music starts about 01:30 into the clip.


9. "My Body is a Cage" by Peter Gabriel from Scratch My Back



Probably the most interesting part about seeing Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in the theater was the trailer for John Carter. I wasn't particularly attracted to the trailer itself, but was surprised to recognize the lyrics to Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage" being sung by someone who was definitely not Aracde Fire's frontman. I looked it up when I got home and learned Peter Gabriel did a cover album called Scratch My Back including the Arcade Fire tune.

I like Gabriel's interpretation though I admit I have no idea what the song has to do - thematically or otherwise - with John Carter. But then again, I don't know the character at all, just like the guy in the theater who, at the end of the trailer, said very loudly so everyone else in the theater could hear, "Who the hell is John Carter?"


8. "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy from The House That Dirt Built



I hunted down this tune after hearing it on a TV spot for Batman: Arkham City. I never thought I would be picking my music from video game commercials, but hey. It's a cool tune. The full song is good, but the beginning is fairly lame. There's an intro including what is clearly supposed to be a cowboy walking meaningfully somewhere in a heroic manner - a saloon, a coral, or some bullshit - but whoever was handling the sound effects didn't seem to know what footsteps sound like. It sounds like someone is just rhythmically dropping sacks of dirt.

7. "My Weakness" by Moby from Play



Not only is this the second Moby song on my list, but it's the first of two songs I only heard because of The X-Files. "My Weakness" was used perfectly in a scene late in the series when Fox Mulder finally finds his long lost sister (maybe) as a ghost running around in the woods. I found the music so heartbreaking I had to hunt down the name of the artist. I think this is probably the first time I learned Moby's name.

The clip above is about the closest to the actual scene I could find online. It's slowed down to include the entire song, but most of the other clips I found were just weird "tributes" to the scene.


6. "I Saved the World Today" by the Eurythmics from Peace



The Sopranos is one of my favorite television series, and the clip featured in the video above is one of the show endings I remember best, and the reason it's so memorable is the song. As I recall, the scene occurs when Tony returns home after cleaning up after his sister impulsively murdered her fiance. When Carmella makes the snide comment about committing suicide, she's alluding to Tony's Russian mistress who attempted suicide earlier in the show. There's something just perfect about Tony returning home after a long night of bloody work and being delivered an emotional knuckle sandwich. And the song is the cherry on top. It's funny, considering the circumstances, and Annie Lennox's voice is one of the absolute last voices you expect to hear at the end of an episode of The Sopranos. Without this episode, I never would've cared about this song. As it stands, it's part of my ipod's regular rotation.


5. "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" by The Dropkick Murphys from The Warrior's Code



The music from The Departed made me a big fan of The Warrior's Code, though I don't know if I can rightly say I'm a Dropkick Murphys fan. I like them, but in small doses. And actually, I wouldn't say "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" is my favorite of their songs.


4. "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone from Pastel Blues



I'm a little embarrassed that I had no idea who Nina Simone was until I saw this episode of Scrubs, was immediately struck by the song, and looked it up (the Internet rocks). I love the 10-minute long version of the song, and it's another one that finds regular rotation on my music player.


3. "Ring the Bells" by James from Seven



The scene above is from the episode "D.P.O.," the third episode of the third season of The X-Files. It was the first time I'd heard "Ring the Bells," and I instantly loved it though, for reasons that become clear about 3 minutes into the clip, I don't often listen to it in the car.

If you've never seen the episode, you should watch the first 4 minutes or so not just for the song, but because the opening scene introduced quite a bit of the world to both Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Black.


2. "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)" by The First Edition from The First Edition



I would've lived a long, happy life without ever knowing Kenny Rogers ever sang about LSD if it weren't for The Big Lebowski.

Of course, embedding is disabled on this clip as well, but you can watch it here.


1. "A Little Respect" by Erasure from The Innocents



There is really no reason for me to like this goddamn song. It's a dance song. It's an '80s song. By all rights I should be burning Erasure CDs in big piles in Nuremberg stadium. But after it was used as a common thread in an early episode of Scrubs, it became a guilty pleasure. And every time I listen to it, I think of JD running down the hallway, hoping to outrun his imprisonment in The Friend Zone.

Of course, I never tried to discover a little something to make me sweeter.

Why not?

2 comments:

Chris said...

The X-Files were a great source of music. To the already-mentioned, I would add "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. LOVE that song...

Mick Martin said...

Chris, I looked up the video for that on youtube, and I definitely recognize it. What episode used that?