Continuing the chronological presentation of my 25 favorite songs…
‘(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville‘ – R.E.M. (1984)
If I weren’t limiting my Favorite Songs playlist to one song per artist, R.E.M. is the band that may well have landed more than one track in the lineup. ‘Driver 8,’ ‘Maps and Legends,’ ‘Half a World Away’ and ‘So. Central Rain’ all were finalists for this list.
[Guest blogger Madison continues her look at the best use of music in 2017 television shows]
What does a show about female wrestlers and a show about intense female oppression have in common? Stellar jams!
Hulu’s original show, The Handmaid’s Tale was adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name. Elisabeth Moss stars as Offred in an astounding performance which has been duly showered with accolades and awards. Her sardonic voice-overs bring an odd levity to a truly grim dystopian future where women have been stripped of their humanity after fertility becomes the most sought after commodity in America.
Full disclosure: I created this top ten list pretty much so I could list today’s SOTD in the #1 spot.
John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club is, incomprehensibly, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and has been very much in the cultural spotlight recently. All that coverage has teleported me back to my early teens, when this film (and this song) were godlike.
The funny thing is that I’d always assumed the track was not written for the film but unearthed by Hughes from a Simple Minds record. Not the case, as it turns out. The song was written for the film by Keth Forsey and Steve Schiff and recorded by Simple Minds only after three other acts declined.
Certain songs are so intertwined with movies they’ve appeared in that they sort of become extensions of the film. The films of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Andersons Wes and Paul Thomas come immediately to mind.
I don’t think I can ever hear ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ or Urge Overkill’s cover of ‘Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon’ without being thrown back into Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Nor can I hear the piano coda of ‘Layla’ without picturing the parade of corpses toward the end of Goodfellas. Nico’s version of Jackson Browne’s ‘These Days’ is married to the image of Margot Tenenbaum stepping off the green line bus and Aimee Mann’s ‘Wise Up’ and ‘Save Me’ conjure up the heart and soul of Magnolia.
