Music has been an important part of movies since the very beginning, from the guy playing the organ during the silent movie to Quentin Tarantino’s masterful use of popular music in his films. But there’s nothing quite like a theme song written specifically for a movie. And so in honor of tonight’s Oscars I present some of the greatest movie themes.

Guy Klucevsek and David Garland “The Blob” (The Five Blobs)
Did you know that this song was written by Burt Bacharach and Mac David (Hal’s brother)? Strangely it never seems to come up when people are discussing Bacharach’s body of work. The Five Blobs were a group of studio musicians rounded up specifically to record this song.

I like this cover even better than the original, mainly because I’m a sucker for an accordion. There are also special bonus lyrics about the Blob eating mangoes.

The Fuzztones “Green Slime” (Richard Delvy)
After listening to this song I decided to check out the movie again. Two astronaut commanders battle for the affections of the hot doctor on an alien-infested space station. They’re kind of like Goofus and Gallant, one guy’s a real hardass and every time the other guy issues an order at least one of his men gets killed.

In the end they decide that the space station has too many aliens on it so they abandon it and destroy the station by turning on its jets and pointing at the Earth so it will burn up in the atmosphere. Because the aliens reproduce by flinging their blood around, if a single drop of alien blood survives reentry the planet is doomed. So why not point the space station toward anyplace else but Earth?

The theme song is easily the best thing about this movie. It’s a wonderfully freaky psychedelic tune with timeless lyrics:

Is it something in your head?
Will you believe it when you’re dead?
Green Sliiiiiime! Green Sliiiiiiiiiime!

Anekka “Live And Let Die” (Paul McCartney & Wings)
If ever a song screamed out for a bossa nova deconstruction it’s this one. The way they treat the frantic middle section of the song is particularly nice.

Mutsuhiro Nishiwaki “Ben” (Michael Jackson)
I know very little about this guy. Apparently he rigs up music boxes to play popular songs. He’s got six albums of movie themes out there along with two Christmas albums. Once I found out he turned his considerable talents toward my favorite love song to a rat I decided that he’s my kind of guy. Buy his stuff at the iTunes Store, this kind of art needs to be supported.

D.O.A. “Singin’ In The Rain” (Gene Kelly)
It starts out sounding like a bunch of drunks singing in a bar but then the horn section kicks in and a full-on ska song breaks out. But it still sounds like it’s being sung by a bunch of drunks in a bar.

The title of this week’s post comes from a song by Tony Trischka entitled “Ladies Of Refinement.” It’s an original song so it really doesn’t fit in with my mission here at Cover Freak, but it’s a nice little minuet played on the banjo that includes the sentiment you see above. It popped up on my iPod shortly after I saw the video below from the dynamic Mister Squid. He made himself a banjo out of odds and ends he found at the World’s Longest Yard Sale. So I was inspired to pay tribute to the banjo this week.

Tony Trischka “World Turning” (Fleetwood Mac)
I like the way this guy expands the palette of the banjo. He does creative stuff with the instrument without making everything into a generic bluegrass song. This one’s quite a banjo-and-fiddle driven hoedown that still keeps the spirit of the original song.

Hayseed Dixie “My Best Friend’s Girl” (The Cars)
This is a small step up from those “Pickin’ On” albums that feature bluegrass covers of popular artists, if only because the band has a name. This sort of thing is funny for a song or two but it gets old in a hurry if you try listening to a whole album’s worth of it.

Patti Smith “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana)
The banjo is not the primary instrument here though the plucking gives a weird feeling to the song. This is one of those songs that changed everything and consequently has been covered way too often. But you can depend on Patti Smith to do something different with it. The poetry she adds to it fits right in with what Kurt Cobain wrote.

Petty Booka “Downtown” (Petula Clark)
Allow me to once again declare my undying love for my Tokyo Bluegrass Honeys. They’re so cute, so charming, so talented on their ukuleles. I’m terribly disappointed that they’re not coming over to the U.S. for this year’s Japan Nite tour. I’ll probably still go, those shows are a hoot.

Run C&W “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” (The Undisputed Truth)
I asked Mister Squid for some banjo covers and this is one of the songs he coughed up. From what I can tell these guys specialize in bluegrass covers of Motown and soul songs. I really like how they use the harmonica and jaw harp to simulate that Motown wah-wah guitar sound.

Talk To Me: Some time ago I added a guestbook to Cover Freak. It was quickly overrun with spam and since I was too lazy to moderate the posts I took it down. I’ve since found a couple of nifty WordPress plugins that are supposed to curtail spam. So you’ll now see a link on the right (under the Administrative heading) for the guestbook and links below the posts to leave comments. So if you’ve always wanted to rant at me but are too shy to use the contact form, try one of those. Hopefully they won’t get infested with spam because I’d like to know what you think about what goes on here.

Update: The guestbook doesn’t seem to be working. I’m too lazy to troubleshoot it so I got rid of it. The comments are working, though.

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Valentine’s Day is almost upon us, so it’s time to get all mushy and listen to some sappy romantic music. And when you’re done with that come back here and check out some other songs about love.

Pine Valley Cosmonauts “I Want To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart” (Patsy Montana)
Patsy Montana isn’t too well known today but she was the first female Country and Western artist to sell a million records. It’s a perky tune about the benefits of dating somebody who bathes once a month whether he needs it or not. I love the sentiment that she wants to be a cowboy’s sweetheart so she can blow a cowhand’s pay. That’s just too romantic for words. This recording features some great yodeling from the fantastic Kelly Hogan.

Frank Rogala “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)” (The Crystals)
This song has become a Valentine’s Day tradition here on Cover Freak. My wife is worried. She never was the romantic type.

And just so everybody understands the original intent of the song, here’s what Wikipedia tells us about it:

(Gerry) Goffin and (Carole) King wrote the song after discovering that singer Little Eva was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend. When they inquired why she tolerated such treatment, Eva replied, with complete sincerity, that her boyfriend’s actions were motivated by his love for her.

The song was written and intended as a sort of protest song from the point of view of an abused woman.

Which is a fine sentiment and a good intention, but the execution is somewhat lacking. I don’t think anybody who hears this song for the first time thinks that’s what it’s about.

Neko Case “Thanks A Lot” (Ernest Tubbs)
I’m not a big fan of Neko Case. People tell me that I’m supposed to like her but she just leaves me cold for the most part. She really does a good job of belting this song out though. It’s the sort of bitter, sarcastic song that makes me feel good about my marriage.

kd lang “Johnny Get Angry” (Joanie Sommers)
Here we have another song that assumes that a man doesn’t love his woman unless he gets mad at her, sung this time by everybody’s favorite lesbian crooner. I remember seeing her sing this on Saturday Night Live and being totally blown away. It’s a complete deconstruction of the whole school of songwriting that views women as fragile flowers that want a testosterone-crazed thug to protect them.

Gluebound “Where Did Our Love Go” (The Supremes)
It’s a big, swooning song with a great churchy organ and killer guitar washes. He could be singing about fried chicken and it would still be a killer song. But the fact that he’s singing about heartbreak makes it so much better.

I was starting to work on next week’s Valentine’s Day post and I started to think about all the songs Hank Williams wrote about mean women and heartbreak. And it occurred to me that Cover Freak is almost two and a half years old and I hadn’t posted a tribute to Hank. I don’t know how that’s even possible, but that injustice ends today.

Beck “Your Cheatin’ Heart” (Hank Williams)
By Beck’s standards this song is quite straightforward and unadorned. It’s very dreamy and ethereal, almost completely detached as he contemplates his unfaithful lover. This comes from a pretty good tribute album that came out a couple of years ago.

Andre Williams And 2 Star Tabernacle “Ramblin’ Man” (Hank Williams)
I have a version of this song that features Tuvan throat singing, but I decided to go with a version that’s a bit more accessible. It starts out chugging along nicely and then devolves into something that sounds like the unholy love child of  Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Joe Cocker.

Camper Van Beethoven “Six More Miles To The Graveyard” (Hank Williams)
Let’s do one more from CVB, shall we? This has gotta be the most cheerful song ever recorded about burying your dead lover. Get up and dance a frisky little two-step. You know you want to.

The Residents “Kaw-Liga” (Hank Williams)
The concept of the Residents covering Hank is weird enough. The execution is every bit as bizarre as you would expect.

Johnny Dowd “Pictures From Life’s Other Side” (Hank Williams)
This is what I imagine it would sound like if Tom Waits covered a Hank Williams song. Lots of low-fi skronk going on here. I love the drumming, it’s like repeatedly getting your head slapped.

Thore “Alone And Forsaken” (Hank Williams)
This is one of the most chilling songs ever written. It truly is the sound of hopeless desperate heartbreak. There’s something about the baritone vocals in this song that really increases the doom factor. Even if he does change the line “the whippoorwills cry” to “the whippets will cry.” Whippets have been known to bark, but never to cry.