2008-03-17

How I Became A Music Geek By Watching Movies.

My brief career as a Ghost Whisperer is now pretty much behind me...almost. I'm supposedly telling one more round of spook stories to some potential donors this week. Then I'm done. Which is fine by me, because I think the ghosts have grown weary of my tromping through their digs, like, "Oy gevalt, it's HER again. Enough with the hanged Henry Jewett in the traproom already!" And besides, once you've been interviewed by Joyce Kulhawik, where else is there to go, really?

It's been fun and all, and while the 19-year-old version of myself would be utterly THRILLED at the idea of taking people on ghost hunts for a living, it's time to get back to what REALLY matters.

Music from John Hughes movies, chickens. Yes.

Arguably more important than the movies themselves, the carefully-selected songs playing at key moments are practically characters in and of themselves. We all feel a little pang at the soaring synth of OMD during the prom scene in "Pretty In Pink," and if the hair on your arms doesn't raise just a tiny bit at Charlie Burchill's majestically understated riffs as Simple Minds asks that you don't forget about them in "The Breakfast Club," then you are just soulless, that's all. Even if, like me, you've spent WAY too much time trying to figure out if Burchill's using a Roland JC-120 or some other equally ubiquitous 80's rig, that shit is just MAGICAL.

You can't listen to Yello's "Oh Yeah" without thinking of Ed Rooney in the back of the bus ("Gummy bear? They've been in my pocket...they're real warm and soft...") and I may be the only person who actually prefers the version of "Pretty In Pink" specifically re-recorded for the film, because the original sounded "too dark."

But those are the most well-known songs. No less important are the songs that are peppered throughout each film. They are no less lodged in the Vast Warehouse Of Useless Information known as my brain. There's Paul Young's"Love of the Common People" playing in Molly Ringwald's bedroom as she sizes up her woeful chest situation at the beginning of "Sixteen Candles."

Dream Academy's lovely instrumental cover of "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" playing in the art museum scene in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off":

(By the by, did you know there was actually a version they did with vocals? With a video to boot? I didn't.)

In "Pretty In Pink," Molly Ringwald creates what is probably the ugliest prom dress in the history of prom dresses, as New Order's "Thieves Like Us" plays in the background.

That song that Anthony Michael Hall busts a move to during the school dance in "Sixteen Candles"? That's Oingo Boingo's "Wild Sex (In the Working Class)."

The one that just KILLS me every single time is "Positively Lost Me" by The Rave-Ups, which is playing in the club that they don't let poor Duckie into in "Pretty In Pink."

Propaganda's "Abuse" is the music playing in the opening scenes of the somewhat lesser-known "Some Kind of Wonderful" (it's kind of the flip-side of "Pretty In Pink," with that moody fucker Eric Stoltz in the Molly Ringwald role, and Mary Stuart Masterson as Duckie).

There are loads more, of course. I would probably have to devote at least a dozen entries to 'em all. I'll spare you, since there are probably eight million websites devoted to this shit already.

But there IS the list I've been compiling in my head, called "Songs That SHOULD HAVE BEEN In A John Hughes Movie." I started this list not too long ago, when I decided that Robyn Hitchcock's "Madonna of the Wasps" was what SHOULD HAVE BEEN PLAYING in "The Breakfast Club" when Ally Sheedy emerges, freshly-scrubbed and in a clean blouse, having sold her soul to make that big dumb jock Emilio Estevez like her. Ugh. HATE that scene. It would go over SO much better with "Madonna of the Wasps" playing in the background, rather than that whispery, flatulent synth instrumental...

lisamcc at 8:34 p.m.

11 comments so far
Stephen
2008-03-18 15:36:24
I bought the Rave-ups album Chance because I remembered their name scrawled over Samantha's notebook in Sixteen Candles. And I agree, Ally Sheedy was hot until Molly "fix'd" her. Stupid Cherry.
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Lexi
2008-03-18 16:28:51
Damn straight! Every word, true.
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LisaMcC
2008-03-18 16:56:34
There was nothing wrong with Ally Sheedy that even MORE black eyeliner wouldn't have fixed. Moderation is for sucks. Like Molly Ringwald.
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vikkitikkitavi
2008-03-18 19:53:38
"Pretty in Pink" was absolutely ruined for me by the fact that the dress sucked so bad.
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Lexi
2008-03-18 22:33:35
Yes, the dress was just about the ugliest thing ever conceived in costume form. But what REALLY ruined the movie was that she was SUPPOSED TO STAY WITH DUCKIE. Goddamn Blaine and all the Blaines in the world.
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Jess
2008-03-19 13:39:41
A) The dress was hideous! B) Blaine pretty much NEVER APOLOGIZED for acting like a dick. What a dick! C) I was so in love with Erik Stoltz in that movie (SKOW) that it hurt. D) Mary Stuart Masterson pretty much carries around her drum sticks in SKOW everywhere she went. Why? To keep reminding us that she's a drummer? E) Sometimes when I am drumming I feel like Mz Masterson. Cool. Tough. I want to carry my sticks around with me everywhere but Pibb won't let me.
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vikkitikkitavi
2008-03-19 13:43:51
I expect you would get 100% on this here 80s music quiz. Spooney would probably get them all right as well. My sister got 85%. I got 50%. Not my decade.
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vikkitikkitavi
2008-03-19 13:44:36
Ooops! URL: http://www.shegoddess.com/q/80s/audioquiz.aspx
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LisaMcC
2008-03-19 13:52:01
Yeah. 100%. Took me all of 2 minutes to do the whole thing.

I am UNSTOPPABLE, bitches!
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Spooney
2008-03-19 14:17:12
Fuck the 80s
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Lynette
2008-03-24 23:12:39
I can't wait for your write ups of the brat pack follow ups like St Elmo's Fire. I wanted Demi's hair. But yes, that prom dress sucked donkey butt. Duckie was totally robbed and the skanks that supposedly hooked up with him did NOT help me in the least. Spader rocks the bad boy thing so well. I loved that boy. I related to SKOW soooooo much because I was always waiting around for some schmuck, pining and hoping. Unfortunately for me, it worked. If you have to wait and pine, he's just not that into you. Took me 16 yrs to find that out. I think you need to also venture into movies like Repo Man and Liquid Sky. "Me and my rhythm BOX!"
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