13 on the 13^th

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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1. Doug’s 13 guilty pleasure
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