Remember when the purchase of an album, cassette tape or CD was an investment in your life? Remember when you only got twenty dollars a week and you had to decide between the music and the new Bonni Bell lip palette or a bootleg copy of Playboy from some kid in your class? And, remember the feeling of absolute desolation when you realized that the only song you even liked on said CD was the one they were looping on the radio every thirty minutes?
 

Enter the movie soundtrack. Like a mix-tape for the masses, it was a way to sample songs and to enjoy them visually as well, like the movie was just an extravagant video montage.
 

When I was twelve I spent the summer in Debbi Nye’s basement, religiously watching Grease. We fought over who got to be Sandy and who got stuck playing Danny. I had a mullet and Debbi had the black stretchy pants, “Tell me about it, stud.” Of course there were a couple of duds. “Hopelessly Devoted”made me gag and Rizzo’s whining about her well deserved reputation didn’t exactly inspire sympathy until much, much later in life. But my love for movie music was cemented that summer.
 

Next came Dirty Dancing. I bought the album. I tried the moves at my sixth grade graduation dance. I got reprimanded by my English teacher. But hey, f!%k it, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” I watched that movie so many times that when I am old and senile I might not remember how to brush my own teeth, but I will be able to sing, “She’s Like The Wind,” verbatim. On the up side Dirty Dancing introduced me to Solomon Burke, who is absolutely amazing. (I saw him at the Hollywood Bowl last summer.) This film made me fall in love with the sounds of “the oldies.” Suddenly, I was raiding my dad’s music collection, looking for other songs by The Ronettes, Bruce Channel, Maurice William and the Zodiacs. In doing so, I discovered Buddy Holly, The Chiffons and the Righteous Brothers.
 

It was because of this foray into my dad’s stash that I recognized Clarence “Frogman” Henry in the bathtub scene of The Lost Boys. Corey Haim soaped up and sang along to “Ain’t Got no Home.” The rest of the music sounded dark and mysterious for a girl who thought Poison was heavy metal and who owned every one of Wham!’s albums. I practiced my slow motion vampire moves in my room to “Cry Little Sister” and the Echo and the Bunnymen version of “People are Strange.” Sleep all day. Party all night. Who wouldn’t want to be a vampire? My skin would probably clear up too. Unfortunately, Clarence didn’t make it onto the soundtrack.
 

Neither did the Rolling Stones version of “Miss Amanda Jones” appear on the soundtrack for Some Kind of Wonderful. (It’s interesting to note that all the lead characters’ names had Stones’ connections; Keith, Watts, and Amanda Jones.) I was bummed that The March Violets version was not as rockin’, but I was enraptured with Flesh for Lulu singing “I Go Crazy.” It became the theme song for every high school fantasy I had, none of which involved me taking the bus.
 

When I turned eighteen I got my first fake ID and the soundtrack for Reservoir Dogs. Success meant getting into a dive bar and belting out “Stuck in the Middle” with Steelers Wheels, or stomping along to “Hooked on a Feeling” with the college kids, “Ooga chucka, ooga chukka.” Super sounds of the seventies continued. The Steven Wright commentary is killer.
 

I have to mention Singles because it was a great movie and it brought Seattle and some kind of grunge to my little Canadian town. I borrowed the CD from a friend and only really ever ended up listening to Paul Westerberg’s poppy tune “Waiting for Somebody.” At the time, I didn’t appreciate the fact that the best bands of the nineties were all there: Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees and the Smashing Pumpkins. My bad.

Reality Bites was like Singles, an angst-y coming of age type “Holy shit what do we do now twenty-somethings” looking for love and relevance movie. And, they were doing it to classics like “My Sharona” and the Squeeze’s “Tempted.” Ethan Hawke was greasy and mournful on “I’m Nuthin”. “He says he has a pothead mama, got a cokehead dad.” I love that. Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Loeb, Crowded House and U2 are all there. My personal favorites are “Revival” by Me Phi Me, which sounds like Arrested Development, and “When You Come Back to Me” by World Party, similar to Bowie’s “Young American.” This is the soundtrack I took with me to college.
 

(Sigh) College. I had a stoner roommate, and more nights than I can remember I came home from the library to a house full of pot smoke and Natural Born Killers. We used to call each other Mickey and Mallory. I don’t know if we bought this CD or stole it from someone else’s dorm room. On it Juliet Lewis sings “Born Bad” from her jail cell, acapella, with an intro from Robert Downey Jr. Songs by the Cowboy Junkies, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are edited with dialogue making this soundtrack unique and for us, personal. We have now been friends for thirteen years and when I miss him, I put on “Sweet Jane” and call. He hears it and on cue says “The whole World’s coming to an end Mal.” I answer, “I see angels Mickey. They’re comin’ down for us from Heaven…”
 

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

To contact Smokie Lanark email:
Or visit: