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.