13 favourite songs from movie soundtracks.

Thir­teen Things about Patrick Johan­neson

1. Primus, “Tommy the Cat”, from the sound­track to Bill and Ted’s Bogus Jour­ney.
   This song intro­duced me to Primus, the bass-centred wacko-lyrics band from El Sobrante, and I’ve never had cause to look back since. It’s the story of a female cat out lookin’ for some action. When she finds Tommy the Cat, her search is over:
   

   The air was filled with cat­calls (no pun intended) but not even a mus­cle in her neck did twitch as she saun­tered straight into the heart of the alley­way. She knew what she wanted. She was lookin’ for the stud-bull; the he-cat. Well that was me.

   Tommy the Cat is my name and I say unto thee:

   Say baby do you wanna lay down with me
   Say baby do you wanna lay down by my side
   Say baby do you wanna lay down with me
   Say baby, say baby

   The video for the song fea­tures Les Clay­pool, the manic mad­man on bass and vocals, as a Roarin’ 20s-style bar­tender in a milk bar. It must be seen to be believed.

2. The Lügen Broth­ers, “Son of a Bitch to the Core”, from the sound­track to Hard Core Logo.
   HCL was a mock­u­men­tary, a film about the reunion tour of a fic­tional punk band. The lead singer, Joe Dick (IIRC), was played by Head­stones front­man Hugh Dil­lon. Great show, and the sound­track plays right into the whole mythos by virtue of being set up as a trib­ute album to the fic­tional band (also named Hard Core Logo).

   There are two ver­sion on the sound­track of “Son of a Bitch to the Core”, both of them great–hey, it’s a great tune. The Head­stones do a straight-up rocker, and the Lügen Broth­ers do it as a country-styled barn-burner. I love both ver­sions, I do, but oddly enough, I have to give the coun­try ver­sion the nod here. There’s a sub­tle dif­fer­ence in the two songs:

   Head­stones: …If you take me on, I’m gonna lose / it’s a son of a bitch to the core…
   Lügen Bros: …If you take me on, you’re gonna lose / ’cause I’m a son of a bitch to the core…

3. Bad Reli­gion, “Lead­ers and Fol­low­ers”, on the Clerks sound­track. Punk the way punk should be; not watered-down “poor whiney me” but fast and loud and short and rel­e­vant. Plus they use big words to good effect.
   

   There’s the image of a man who com­mands a high opin­ion
   While he hides his hatred with a sheep­ish grin
   And beside him, flank­ing closely, are the voice­less hol­low masses
   Who lap up what­ever trick­les in

   This inter­course of nature, this vul­gar social past­time
   Reflects the low­est mark of our progress
   And the few who ride periph­eral main­tain sub­tle advan­tage
   Fight­ing hard to abstain and redress

4. Barry Adamson’s “Some­thing Wicked This Way Comes” on the Lost High­way sound­track. It’s an instru­men­tal, and it’s moody and spooky, and it’s just the right pick for the scene in the movie where the creepy lit­tle old guy accosts Fred, telling him “I’m at your house right now. Phone me.”
5. John Williams’ “Impe­r­ial March”, from The Empire Strikes Back. (Is it run­ning through your head now? Because it’s sure run­ning through mine…)
6. And its antithe­sis, the cheer­ful, chirpy “Can­tina Band song” from Star Wars.
7. “Belleville Rendez-vous” from Les Triplette de Bellevile. It’s not quite “found sound”, since the sis­ters brought all the items with them to the show, but I never would’ve guessed you could find music in the fan­ning of news­pa­per pages, the wheeze of an old vac­uum cleaner, and the tickety-tick-ticking of a bicy­cle tire.
8. “Green Onions”, from the Get Shorty sound­track. Just ‘cuz.
9. Rufus Wainwright’s ver­sion of “Hal­lelu­jah” on the Shrek sound­track. Haunt­ing and dark in a way that most of the other tunes weren’t.
10. Gord Downie’s solo, a capella ver­sion of “Hal­lelu­jah” on the Saint Ralph sound­track. (Is it cheat­ing to include the same song twice? Do I even care?)
11. Despite my gen­eral dis­like of coun­try music, I have to include “Man of Con­stant Sor­row” by the Soggy Bot­tom Boys on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
12. And the sirens, singing “Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby”, on the O Brother sound­track, too.
13. And finally, from Trainspot­ting, I have to go with “Per­fect Day”, with its creepy, some­what ran­dom spout­ing of James Bond movie titles.

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