Forgotten Movie Songs #28: "A Gringo Like Me" from GUNFIGHT AT RED SANDS

When I start to think about Ennio Morricone's career, my mind boggles. His 500+ film and TV score output seems like a world record, a career that would take an entire career to completely assess. A sample (and the amount of notable titles here could be endless, so I'm sorry if I concentrate only on the ones immediately familiar to me): The Good The Bad and the Ugly (my choice for the best film score of all time), The Mission, Once Upon a Time in the West, Days of Heaven, The Untouchables, A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, Once Upon a Time in America, Duck You Sucker, My Name is Nobody, Bugsy, The Great Silence, Danger: Diabolik, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Cinema Paradiso, La Cage Aux Folles, The Thing, In The Line of Fire, Malena, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, A Pure Formality, Frantic, 1900, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Lolita (the Adrian Lyne version), U Turn, Wolf, and The Stendahl Syndrome.

His output is unmatchable. Hundreds of classical pieces composed before his film involvement, multiple hundreds of orchestrations, both of symphonic pieces and pop songs and experimental pieces. electronic and rock and classical and so many more kinds of sounds. If you just sit and listen to anything done by Morricone, you will be transfixed, even if you have no connection to the event for which the work was written; he is in this way, along with maybe Britain's John Barry, the most immanently listenable composer out there. It's impossible to ague against the notion that Morricone, at the behest of his frequent filmic collaborator Sergio Leone, singularly changed--at the very least--the western film genre (and probably the crime film genre, too); for most of us, after we saw Clint Eastwood's The Man with No Name dispatching villains while backed with Morricone's growling guitars or howling vocals, we were haunted collectively. They so embodied the darkest machismo of the ages that it was impossible for most to imagine the Wild West without such sounds as accompaniment. Genre aside, though, and in trying to simplify such a complicated career, basically, I would say: if Morricone wrote it, it's worth listening to, over and over again. By 2007, when he finally won an Honorary Oscar, I had been predicting such a win for two of three years. It was long overdue, and when it happened, Eastwood was there with him. I only wish Leone could have been there, too (he died in 1989, way too early). 

This song, "A Gringo Like Me," is one of his many masterpieces. It's included in all the compiled overviews of his work, even though I would posit that .0001 of even the informed audience has seen the film it hails from (I haven't seen it either, I should say). But it's historically significant to a ridiculous degree. This main theme to Ricardo Blasco's 1963 film Duello nel Texas, later released as Gunfight at Red Sands and featuring Richard Harrison as Ricardo "Gringo" Martinez, represents Morricone's very first foray into the Western genre, and the first steps into his redefining of it. Morricone contributed to more Italian westerns and crime movies than I could ever attempt to see. Even so, always when I'm watching a film that's new to me, and from wherever in the world, I will hear an odd, burpy FLURR-FLURRRP or a strangely flutey FA-FLEEDLE-DEE-DEEEE, or a bizarre, life-affirming vocal cue ethereally intoning "OOOOH OOH WAAOOO WAAAOOOWAA" or a periodically low-toned "HOEWWUPP!, and I will comment "Is this a Morricone score?!" and sure enough, it turns out to be so. And I am delighted. Time and time, I am reminded of Morricone's work while I'm watching a film, and I comment so quickly to myself "Well, Ennio is here and all is well," because his presence enlivened everything he touched.

But Gunfight at Red Sands is his first, at least in the western genre. It's hard to imagine this as being initial the brick in such a monumental path that led to The Good The Bad and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in America. And it makes me wonder how many great tunes he scored. I mean, seriously, it must be in the hundreds. I don't immediately have the name of the lyric writer at hand (Jose Hierro is as close as I can get). But the composer--with that absolutely amazing buildup to the vocals--is definitely Morricone, and he definitely changed the way we hear the world. The boldly superb vocalist, by the way, is Peter Tevis.



Keep your hand on your gun
Don't you trust anyone
There's just one kind of man that you can trust
That's a dead man
Or a gringo like me

Be the first one to fire
Every man is a liar
There's just one kind of man who tells the truth
That's a dead man
Or a gringo like me

Don't be a fool for a smile or a kiss
Or your bullet might miss
Keep your eye on your goal

There's just one rule that can save you your life
That's a hand on your knife
And the devil in your soul

Keep your hand on your gun
Don't you trust anyone
There's just one kind of man that you can trust
That's a dead man
Or a gringo like me

Keep your hand on your gun
Don't you trust anyone
There's just one kind of man that you can trust
That's a dead man
Or a gringo like me
Or a gringo like me
Or a gringo like me
Like me

Forgotten Movie Songs #27: "Drifting and Dreaming of You" from WHITE LINE FEVER

I finally got to watch Jonathan Kaplan's 1975 film White Line Fever again, for the first time since I was a kid watching it at the drive-in. It's an exacting, often exciting blue-collar drama from a terrific director who's made one of my top films of all time, 1979's Over The Edge. At the end of Over the Edge, we're treated to an unusually gentle tune--a cover of The Five Stairsteps' "Ooh Child," sung by one Valerie Carter. Even though it wasn't the filmmaker's first choice for a closing song, I always felt it worked well with the wistful ending to that hard-as-nails movie. And I always wondered how they decided upon Valerie Carter as the artist to vocalize the final moments to a film that has such a rock-oriented source music soundtrack with contrasting contributions from acts like The Ramones, Cheap Trick, and Van Halen. But now I know...


White Line Fever begins with a lovely country song, impeccably sung by Miss Carter and written, I assume, by the film's composer David Nichtern (no song credits are attributed in the film's opening). I find I almost like the song better than I like the movie, which is saying a lot (as with most of Kaplan's films, like the Isaac Hayes vehicle Truck Turner and his 1983 Shirley Muldowney biopic Heart Like A Wheel, it is intelligent but it never sacrifices that quality to entertainment). "Drifting and Dreaming of You" is a lazily rambling tune, played over star Jan Michael Vincent's homecoming (from Vietnam, I suppose), and this means the song has a structure that doesn't become quite clear until it's over. Still, throughout, Carter's vocals are superb--lilting, longing and superb.

The song is called "Drifting and Dreaming of You." It is sung by Valerie Carter. The music and lyrics are presumably by David Nichtern.

Presumably, by the stupid Internet rules, this movie is hard to see.  But HERE you can see the film again...continue as free user, click to play, and after the short prologue, the song appears around 2 minutes in.  It's definitely worth the wait, and the movie is superb, too. (BTW, is this movie being suppressed because of the early gun talk, and because of the film's anti-authoritarian stance?  I think that is supremely unfair.  It's a wonderful film.)



Long, lonely years here without you
Long years to call out your name
Wandered alone through the desert
Lord, how I prayed for the rain
Long years and finally it came
Darling, it's so good to hold you again

Fear was my constant companion
Holding me sleepless each night
Memories danced in the shadows
Danced by the first rays of light
But how can you hold a shadow tight
I wanted to hold you with all of my might

Friends and neighbors came to call
And found me staring at your picture on the wall
They would talk to me like old friends do
But I was drifting and dreaming of you

(Humming - Instrumental Break)

Darling, it's so good to hold you again

Friends and neighbors came to call
And found me staring at your picture on the wall
They would talk to me like old friends do
But I was drifting and dreaming of you

But I was drifting and dreaming of you

Forgotten Movie Songs #25: "Little April Shower" from BAMBI

Walt Disney's Bambi is, officially, the only movie I ever saw alone with my father. It must have been re-released the theaters when I was ten or eleven. Even though my parents had been taking me to adult movies--rated PG, or M, or R--for years, I found myself drawn to the G-rated Bambi, probably due to TV commercials for the re-release. Back then, my family used to go to the drive-in a lot. We always went as a team--my mother, my father and I. And I, at least, ALWAYS had a good time.

I remember begging to go see Bambi back then, but somehow we missed the weekend it was playing at the Northeast Expressway Drive-In. Going to the drive-in was a strictly Friday/Saturday thing for my parents and I. So it looked like I was going to miss seeing Bambi. And--I clearly remember this--I cried. I cried about not seeing Bambi at the drive-in. So to calm me down, my father--on a Thursday night--took me, on his own, to go see it.

Absolutely starstruck, I was, by the film, from beginning to end. I believe that, though it was an imposition on his time, my father was glad we saw it together, and I like to think the memory of seeing this film together stayed with him until he passed away. As a result of the film's powerful intrinsic quality, and of my very personal relationship with it, I still that it is, nearly 70 years after its release, the single best animated feature that has ever been made, and probably the best that will ever BE made.

I base this conclusion on the quality of its animation, surely. But, most of all, I base it on the intense emotional reactions Bambi engenders in everyone who sees it. No other film in history has dramatized the beauties and harshness of the wild, and the life within it, better than this one.

It was released in 1942, and was based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten. It's biography at its most exacting: it tells the story of a doe, Bambi, who is born into royalty as the Great Prince of The Forest. His father is a majestic, many-horned buck--the King of the Forest--and his mother is a tender, nurturing queen. The film follows him from his birth to his ascendance to his father's mantle.

The film is an astonishingly short 70 minutes long, but it packs an amazing punch. Bambi's childhood days, with his exuberant best friend, the rabbit Thumper (memorably voiced by the uncredited Peter Behn) and the shy skunk Flower, are vividly dramatized; we get Bambi's first steps, his first words, and his first friendships. And, in the film's greatest sequence, the "Little April Showers" number, his introduction to the more benign, but nonetheless scary, cruelties of nature.

Upon this opening sequence's emotional climax--of which scads of humans have confessed is their most scarring moviegoing experience (and of which, for the benefit of the many whom I'm sure haven't seen it, I won't talk about now, except to say that it is devastating enough to have proven a problem for Disney, in the 1930s, to ever get made)--we jump to Bambi's adulthood. This part of the film is a bit less charming but, in its portrayal of "the circle of life," is ultimately as moving and makes the story blossom into one that acts a perfect template for another, arguably more popular Disney animated epic called The Lion King (which owes a ridiculous debt to Bambi). Just to keep the record straight, the supervising director was David Hand, and he had six other sequence directors, as well as Disney himself, to help; this puts it on an even plane with the largely more ambitious Fantasia, which had eleven animators working as directors. But it remains that Bambi is the more resplendent picture.

I can still recall experiencing the "Little April Shower" sequence for the first time. I remember thinking that it reminded me of being at the drive-in when the rain begins to fall, so I immediately experienced a soul-deep connection to it. Now when I watch it again, it astonishes me on so many levels. The animation of the droplets' movements, in all their infinite permutations, hits me first. Then the lyrics, vocal and instrumental arrangement, and music for the sequence--scored by Frank Churchill and worded by Larry Morey--takes me aback me with its gorgeous power. Finally, I am hit on a subliminal level with a wave of empathy for animals of all species, who are forced to endure the callousness of nature and yet almost always emerge ready to face the challenges of a new day of life. I have always been an animal lover, but Bambi made me into more of one, I think, and chiefly because of "Little April Shower." Bookended by cheekily austere clarinet solos, the sequence steps up into, at first, a sweet look at the cooling benefits of a nice rain. But then, in its middle, it balloons into a genuinely frightening examination of a storm, and how it affects life in the forest, and how it traumatizes Bambi in particular, and strengthens his bond with his brave mother--an issue that comes into desperate play later in this extraordinary film.


The song is called "Little April Shower." The music is by Frank Churchill (who composed the film's exuberant score--one of the best in film history), and the lyrics are by Larry Morey. These two artists were nominated for Oscars in 1942, but for another excellent Bambi number, called "Love is a Song." But, still, when I think of Bambi, I think of this sequence, and this song, primarily.



Drip, drip, drop
Little April shower
Beating a tune
As you fall all around

Drip, drip, drop
Little April shower
What can compare
To your beautiful sound
Beautiful sound, beautiful sound
Drip, drop, drip, drop

Drip, drip, drop
When the sky is cloudy
Your pretty music
Will brighten the day

Drip, drip, drop
When the sky is cloudy
You'll come along
With a song right away

Come with your beautiful music

Drip, drip drop
Little April shower
Beating a tune
As you fall all around

Drip, drip, drop
Little April shower
What can compare
To the beautiful sound

Drip, drip, drop
When the sky is cloudy
You come along
Come along with your pretty little song
Drip, drip, drop
When the sky is cloudy
You come along
Come along with your pretty little song

Gay little roundelay
Gay little roundelay
Song of the rainy day
Song of the rainy day
How I love to hear your patter
Pretty little pitter patter
Helter skelter when you pelter
Troubles always seem to scatter

Drip, drip drop
Little April shower
Beating a tune
As you fall all around

Drip, drip, drop
Little April shower
What can compare
To the beautiful sound

(Break)

Drip, drip drop
Little April shower
Beating a tune
As you fall all around

Drip, drip, drop
Little April shower
What can compare
To the beautiful sound
Beautiful sound

Forgotten Movie Songs #24: "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" from RIO BRAVO

The first time I ever saw Howard Hawks' exciting, funny and wholly entertaining 1959 western Rio Bravo, I was immediately enchanted by the relationships between almost everyone in the picture. John Wayne is a staunch town sheriff trying to enforce the rule of law on to a murderous gang member (Claude Akins) who's about to be transported to another city for trial. Dean Martin is his drunken deputy who's trying to dry out while rededicating himself to his duty. Ricky Nelson is a greenhorn kid with a crackerjack aim who offers his assistance to Wayne, Angie Dickinson is a voluptuous lady passing through town, and Walter Brennen is the cantankerous jailer who watches over the prisoner as the sheriff's office is beset upon by Akins' fellow gang members, who're bent on breaking him out of the clink.

It's a brilliant movie, written by Leigh Brackett (who would go on to co-write, of all things, The Empire Strikes Back). It's consistently clever, well-edited, and just a whole lot of fun. One of my favorite scenes in Rio Bravo, though, occurs in a moment of downtime between gunfights. Wayne, Martin, Nelson and Brennen are holed up in the jailhouse, bored and yet on edge. So Martin and Nelson begin warbling a sweet duet on a song called "My Rifle, My Pony and Me." The song was written by the score's composer, the legendary Dimitri Tiompkin; the lyrics were written by Oscar-winner Paul Francis Webster. It's a beautifully recorded, sweet little ditty that, surprisingly, doesn't feel forced into Hawks' film.



The sun is sinking in the west
The cattle go down to the stream
The redwing settles in the nest
It's time for a cowboy to dream

Purple light in the canyon
That is where I long to be
With my three good companions
Just my rifle, pony and me

Gonna hang my sombrero
On the limb of a tree
Coming home, sweet my darling
Just my rifle, pony and me

Whippoorwill in the willow
Sings a sweet melody
Riding to Amarillo
Just my rifle, pony and me

No more cows to be ropin'
No more strays will I see
'Round the bend she'll be waitin'
For my rifle, pony and me
For my rifle, my pony and me

Forgotten Movie Songs #23: "Nights Are Forever" from TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE

1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie was, like most anthology movies, a hit-and-miss affair. The first two segments, from John Landis and Steven Spielberg, didn't really make a mark. But the Dan Ackroyd/Albert Brooks wraparound (by Landis), and the final segments from Joe Dante and George Miller were real fun (especially the latter, an adaptation of Richard Matheson's "Horror at 37,000 Feet," with John Lithgow perfect as a freaked-out airplane passenger). My favorite feature about the movie, though, was Jerry Goldsmith's diverse score. The first part is all military-drumbeats, to go along with the stark Vic Morrow story. The second is lush and flowery, to match the gushy Spielberg episode. The third episode is filled with wacked-out cartoon-inspired orchestrations, as the Joe Dante episode required. And the fourth bit is a straight-out horror score, with a screechy violin as its scary lead.

And then, somewhere in that first episode, we hear the song "Nights Are Forever" being played over the jukebox. It's just buried in the mix there, but it became the centerpiece of the Twilight Zone soundtrack when I bought it on vinyl in the early 80s. I just couldn't get enough of the song that summer, and played it constantly. It somehow never became a hit, even though it featured Jennifer Warnes, who'd just scored a #1 hit with another movie song "Up Where We Belong" (from An Officer and a Gentleman). Hearing it now, I still like the song, even if its sparkly 80s orchestration is quite dated.

The song is called "Nights Are Forever." The music is by Jerry Goldsmith and the lyrics are by John Bettis. It's sung by the sultry Jennifer Warnes.



Faceless voices talking
Smoky rings of seared lives
Strangers telling stories
No one really buys

Through the neon starlight
Women watch the men move
Through the broken music
Of what they need to prove

Nights are forever
When you have no one.
Well, nights are forever
When you're just trying to hang on.

Standing in the shadows
Staring holes in my clothes
We both know what's coming
This is how the game goes

Nights are forever
When you have no one.
Nights are forever
When you're just trying to hang on.

All is all I want
You to give.
Love me like
We only have this night to live.

Dancing makes me hungry
Lying bores me to tears
Let's just take each other
The way we appear.

Nights are forever
When you have no one.
Well, nights are forever
When you're just trying to hang on.

Nights are forever
When you have no one.
Nights are forever
When you're just trying to hang on.

Forgotten Movie Songs #22: "Hooked On Your Love" from SPARKLE

I've never seen the 1976 film Sparkle, directed by longtime Mike Nichols editor Sam O'Steen. But I just read that it's about to be remade, and I came across this great clip that instantly makes me wanna see it. It basically tells the same story as Dreamgirls--a barely disguised quasi-bio of the Supremes. This can be predictable stuff, I have to admit. But I've always been a Lonnette McKee fan (she's a knockout in both The Cotton Club and Round Midnight), and I have a little crush on Irene Cara, too. Dwan Smith rounds out the trio, and the film co-stars Dorian Harewood, DeWayne Jessie (aka Otis Day), Tony King, and Philip Michael Thomas.

The music, too, is much more tuneful than that tin-eared Dreamgirls stuff. The song I was introduced to earlier today is called "Hooked on Your Love" and, like most of the soundtrack's original songs, it's written by Superfly mastermind and legendary soul man Curtis Mayfield. That explains why it's so bitchin'. Plus, having the camera trained on a particularly sexy Lonnette McKee goes a long way, too! Awesome little number here!



Your tender smile gives me happy thoughts of you
You got me so close to my dreams now they have to come true
Ooo baby, nothing to be shy about
Nothing we got to lie about
Hope lovin' you don't confuse you
Ooo baby baby, I don't want to lose ya

And when we touch our hearts move at a steady pace
I'm tryin' hard not to show the blushin' over my face
Ooo baby, you bring out the woman in me
What can I see that you can't see?
I like the way we carry on
Hope you understand my feelings got me just a-reeling

What can I do...with this feeling?
Hooked on your love, sweet love love
(What can I do, oh yeah)
What can I do...with this feeling?
Hooked on your love, sweet love love

Your eyes within me
They send me, just a-starin' me down
I'm so turned on in time, and child, I got to move around
Over and over you astound me
I take pleasure to have you around me
My lovin' arms would love to squeeze ya
Oh baby take it, I don't want to tease you

What can I do...with this feeling?
Hooked on your love sweet love love
(What can I do...oh yeah)
What can I do...with this feeling?
Hooked on your love sweet love love

Nothing to be shy about
Nothing we got to lie about
Hope lovin' you don't confuse you
Hope you understand these feelings got me just a-reeling

What can I do...with this feeling?
Hooked on your love sweet love love
(What can I do, oh yeah)
What can I do...with this feeling?
Hooked on your love sweet love love
(What can I do?)
What can I do...with this feeling?
Hooked on your love sweet love love

Forgotten Movie Songs #19: "The sun whose rays" from TOPSY-TURVY

This is, of course, not a song that was written for the movies, though it IS one of the cinema's most moving songs. Originally, it is the premier piece set smack dab in the middle of British librettist William S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan's magnum opus The Mikado, which opened in London in 1885 to astounding applause and then became the team's signature work. Mike Leigh's majestic, lovable, moving 1999 film Topsy-Turvy follows in painstaking detail the story of this production's troubled history. It at once highlights the professional expertise and squabbling contention bandied between Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) and Sullivan (Allan Corduner), and also underlines all the varied facets of board work that stage veteran Leigh himself loves the most, and has transferred to the film world: the peculiar casting, the exalted shaping of story and blocking, the exacting editing and note-giving (there's an uncommonly vibrant scene in the middle of Topsy-Turvy that has Broadbent's Gilbert running through lines with three members of The Mikado's cast, stopping and starting them with detailed directions; I think that this is EXACTLY how the mysterious Leigh works in connection with his own acting crews). Topsy-Turvy is still, and always will be, a tribute to the stage while remaining a categorically cinematic experience.

"The sun whose rays" is a song given to The Mikado's heroine, Yum-Yum, who's the ultra-vain object of desire that sets Gilbert's plot aflame. In Topsy-Turvy (and I'm not giving anything vital away here), the gorgeous song devoted to Yum-Yum's own beauty is saved for this film's VERY final moments (this is the sort of inventiveness that earned Leigh's scripting much acclaim). At the beginning of the clip below, we see actress Shirley Henderson portraying another actress, Leonora Braham, as she stares at a mirror, believing Gilbert's words, and practicing her lines (likely under the influence of the powerful opiate laudanum). This she does right before her Yum-Yum delivers a rafter-shaking, throat-wringing performance, on one night out of a rare many. The whole film is filled with blithe,

back-and-forth comparisons between the actors and the characters they portray while at work; in this way, Topsy-Turvy becomes the actor-worshipping Mike Leigh's most personal film, even if it seems the one that's furthest away from his own experience (Leigh's movies are almost always set his most contemporary London, amongst the doings of the lower- to middle-classes).

On this site, I've made no bones about thinking that Mike Leigh is the greatest filmmaker walking the planet. Topsy-Turvy may very well be the ultimate proof. I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince those who haven't seen it of its worth: if you're reading this, uneducated as I was when first seeing the film, and haven't even considered spending the time on watching Topsy-Turvy, you'll feasibly now know enough to go and check the film out, regardless of whether you know who Gilbert and Sullivan are, or whether or not you think you'll enjoy learning a valued lesson. At the same time, if you don't know me from Adam, are you're open-minded and are as cleared for being taught about new things as I still hope I am, I offer this recommendation thanks to Mike Leigh and his crew--including the gorgeous, sensational Shirley Henderson, with her irrepressible voice that's resolutely comparable to none other.

The piece is largely known as "The sun whose rays" (as is the wont of all operatic musical entries; all list their individual songs' first lines as the song titles, just as is practiced with the titles of poems). Its jovial, satirical lyrics are by William S. Gilbert; its imperial music is by Arthur Sullivan; and it's performed by a phenomenal Shirley Henderson. The sequence is elegantly staged in one single long shot by cinematographer Dick Pope and director Mike Leigh, the latter of which now stands as the world's #1 lifelong Gilbert and Sullivan fan. As such, he crafted this indispensable movie called Topsy-Turvy a little more than a century after The Mikado first appeared onstage. As for the song itself: It should be requisite practice for woman or girl who desires to sing onstage or off.



The sun whose rays
Are all ablaze
With ever-living glory,
Does not deny
His majesty--
He scorns to tell a story!
He won't exclaim,
"I blush for shame,
So kindly be indulgent."
But, fierce and bold,
In fiery gold,
He glories all effulgent!

I mean to rule the earth,
As he the sky--
We really know our worth,
The sun and I!
I mean to rule the earth as he the sky.
We really know our worth,
The sun and I.

Observe his flame,
That placid dame,
The moon's Celestial Highness;
There's not a trace
Upon her face
Of diffidence or shyness:
She borrows light
That through the night
Mankind may all acclaim her.
And, truth to tell,
She lights up well
So I, for one, don't blame her.

Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I!
Ah, pray make no mistake, we are not shy.
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I.

Forgotten Movie Songs #18: "Benson, Arizona" from DARK STAR

Recently I watched a nifty little fan film called Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of Dark Star. Though its obviously dedicated maker, Daniel Griffith, couldn't get on-screen interviews with the key figures behind this history-making 1974 cult movie, he still managed to construct a detailed and dramatic saga of Dark Star's history by talking to nearly everybody else connected with the movie (and he does manage to get both producer/director John Carpenter and writer/star Dan O'Bannon on record, though quite slyly). The film is slightly padded out with too much graphic repetition, but I'm being peevishly picky in mentioning it. It's a fan-driven film through and through, and I'm a fan, so I have to give Griffith's movie high marks. I really liked that it covers everything we Dark Star enthusiasts always wanted to know about this unusual production. It's like a special edition of Cinefantastique come to life.

I'll leave it to the reader to search Let There Be Light out, of course. But I wanted to underline the sequence in which it explores the madly surprising theme song to Dark Star, played as an innerspace radio transmission over the titular spaceship's transmitter as the opening credits hit the screen. Dark Star, if you haven't heard of it, is a way-out sci-fi comedy--a loose spoof of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey--in which four astronauts are stranded in space, put out there on a pointless planet-destroying mission, during which they encounter numerous obstacles that spell their eventual doom. In Let There Be Light, novice lyricist and veteran special effects artist Bill Taylor--who's worked on scads of movies like Blade Runner, What Dreams May Come, Cape Fear, The Thing and The Blues Brothers--tells us what inspired him to write the opening song:

I proposed to John (Carpenter) that it should be a country song...{to match with the idea of} truck drivers in space. And I went away and wrote the lyric. And he liked it. and I was amazed and delighted. It's called "Benson, Arizona" because, years earlier, about 1962, I had driven my little Morris Minor car for a long road trip from Los Angeles to Los Cruses, New Mexico, where my girlfriend lived, for the Christmas holiday. And my Morris Minor broke down in Benson, Arizona on Christmas Day...A gas station attendant identified the problem and he said "You know, there's a guy here in Benson who reconditions electrical parts for cars and he might be able to handle this generator. So he called this guy up on Christmas day and he sent me over there, and this guy, God bless him, had a Lucas generator. And he couldn't install it himself because he said he was all swelled up like a toad from eating too much Christmas dinner. But he gave me tools, and gave me good instructions, so I put in a new generator and I was on my way, thanks to two total strangers willing to help out a traveler on Christmas day. And I'm still very moved by that all these years later. So when it came time to write the lyric, I was thinking about "Where is the most unlikely place in the world that these guys could be longing for? A place so obscure that it would be funny..." So Benson, Arizona automatically came to mind. I wrote three verses--the third verse wasn't necessary--and it all timed out perfectly for the titles. The other nice side effect was that the lady I wen to visit on that Christmas ultimately wound up as my wife.

One of the chief reasons I've always adored Dark Star is because it seems exactly like what it is: a student film, three-fourths of which was filmed at the University of Southern California, where John Carpenter was a student. Let There Be Light meticulously details the journey Carpenter and O'Bannon's film took from being a little 16mm basement project to being a full-fledged 35mm cult classic. But I have to be up front about it: beyond O'Bannon's snide screenplay and supporting performance, beyond Carpenter's inventive direction with those ahead-of-the-times special effects, the theme song to the film became a key ingredient to why I instantly loved the movie when I first saw it in the early 1980s. "Benson, Arizona" is just utterly apt, and filled with the pinings these four unlikely, hippiefied astronauts for a little part of the Earth they'll never see again. Its inclusion into the final print of Dark Star helps tremendously in making the film into the fledgling near-masterwork it is.

After you enjoy part of the pre-song opening (with graphics by Dan O'Bannon), you'll hear it. The song is called "Benson, Arizona." Its evocative lyrics are by Bill Taylor and the music is by John Carpenter. It's sung by John Yeager, and it still give me chills to this day:



A million suns shine down
But I see only one
When I think I'm over you
I find I've just begun
The years move faster than the days
There's no warmth in the light
How I miss those desert skies
Your cool touch in the night

Benson, Arizona
Blew warm wind through your hair
My body flies the galaxy, my heart longs to be there
Benson, Arizona
The same stars in the sky
But they seemed so much kinder
When we watched them, you and I

Benson, Arizona
Blew warm wind through your hair
My body flies the galaxy, my heart longs to be there
Benson, Arizona
The same stars in the sky
But they seemed so much kinder
When we watched them, you and I

Now the years pull us apart
I'm young and now you're old
But you're still in my heart
And the memory won't grow cold
I dream of times and spaces
I left far behind
Where we spent our last few days
Benson's on my mind

Benson, Arizona
Blew warm wind through your hair
My body flies the galaxy, my heart longs to be there
Benson, Arizona
The same stars in the sky
But they seemed so much kinder
When we watched them, you and I

Forgotten Movie Songs #17: "My Name is Tallulah" from BUGSY MALONE

Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone is one of the few films from my childhood that I still look at with the same adoration I first felt for it. Its melding of the adult and juvenile worlds seems now seamless. It stands as perfection, in its own odd way. When, as children, we all play at the grown-up games of rampant violence--whether it be cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, superheroes and villains--I think Parker's clear, humane vision is exactly what we have in our heads. And I really like that Bugsy Malone doesn't short-shrift the loftier sexual aspects of all this rigamarole. Of course, we have Jodie Foster as the moll at the center of this very post. But we also have the now forgotten Florie Dugger (GREAT NAME!) as Blousie Brown, whom we root for as the eventual match for the title character, played by Scott Baio (surely the actor's finest showing--talk about peaking early!). Scott Baio's Bugsy is a playa, for certain, and he has his pick of the litter. I find that fascinating. Should it be shocking to note that kids have sexual lives, too? This movie seems to be one of the two or three I can name that has no problem in admitting that.

Bugsy Malone follows the title character as he tries to bounce between two gangster families who're aiming their pie-thrusting guns at each other (the "deaths" in this film are, for me, as stunning as anything I later experienced in, say, GoodFellas). Parker has the character buffeting between show biz, the boxing gym, the indigent and the well-fed realms in equal measures. It's an incredibly smart film. Bugsy Malone was largely ignored in the US, even though its score and songwriter, Paul Williams, garnered an Oscar nomination for his song score in 1976. In Britain--its country of origin (even though none of its cast members were British)--the film won five BAFTA awards, including two for Jodie Foster (Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer), Best Art Direction, Best Sound, and Best Screenplay (it lost the award for costume design, direction, and Best Film). I seriously think it should have been in the running stateside for almost all of these awards (but it WAS an especially competitive year that year--Foster got a Supporting Actress nomination, but for her not-so-different role in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver). Maybe Parker's film was ignored because it was literally a diminutation of a uniquely American genre--the gangster film. But that makes no sense, ultimately, because the gangster film genre has never gotten much love from Hollywood. But never mind all that. The fact that a sweet, meaty, well-made movie like Bugsy Malone is now footnote in film history makes me angry even as I write now (there's not even a great DVD out there--and I think The Criterion Collection, if it were as ballsy as it purports to be, should get on this immediately).

The art direction, by Geoffrey Kirkland, is at first outstanding. All the sets had to be built in congress to the size of its all-kid cast (the pie-guns and bicycle-powered cars are a major plus). The film editing, by Alan Parker mainstay Gerry Hambling, is exquisite. And the same goes for Monica Howe's costume design, as well as for the expert makeup and hair styling team. The film gets absolutely nothing wrong in completing the illusion that these are adults in kid costumes. This becomes doubly amazing when you consider that none of the lip-synching is done to kid voices; Parker made the brave decision to have adults do all the singing, and even though it seems like a choice that could have spelled disaster, it works (he makes no effort to hide the fact, either, which makes it an extra-snap). In fact, Bugsy Malone doesn't just WORK, it's compelled into the stratosphere by the very things that must have seemed most risky. It's a strange effect, hearing these adult voices and attitudes behind these kid faces, but it is completely successful, in a variety of bizarre ways. After its all seen, Bugsy Malone is a one-of-a-kind picture. There's nothing out there that resembles it.

The BAFTA got it correct when it awarded then newcomer Alan Parker with the screenplay award. If the dialogue hadn't rung true, then none of this would've carried out. But Parker's writing is convincing, even out of babe's mouths. (It helps that the film is extraordinarily well-cast, down to the most expendable bit players; there are some actors here that you cannot believe are not adults. I especially like the unforgettable John Cassisi as Fat Sam, who's surely one of the greatest gangsters ever committed to film.) And the plot is never uninteresting. In a lot of musical comedies, the plot becomes beside the point. Just get us to the laffs and songs, usually, But not here: here, we actually CARE what happens. Given that, to this day, Parker's movie remains funny, clever, adorable, and threatening at a moment's turn. And when coupled with the exacting film craft and the wise selection of Paul Williams' music and lyrics, Bugsy Malone is unbeatable.

I could choose almost all of Williams' Bugsy Malone compositions as Forgotten Movie Songs entries. And I still might. But the first I will point to is Jodie Foster's introduction, called "My Name is Talullah." For me, this is a stone-cold classic of movie-centric songwriting. The only way I can explain its exclusion from the Academy Awards' Best Song race is that the movie itself seemed so wild (and, perhaps, uncomfortable to watch) for so many male Academy members that it's chances were sunk from the get-go. (This film has gone on to be a popular production on local stages, with "My Name is Tallulah" as a centerpiece; meanwhile, here are three of the Best Song nominees of that year: "Ave Satani" from The Omen, "Come to Me" from The Pink Panther Strikes Again, and "A World That Never Was" from Half a House -- surely you've heard of them). Even the eventual winner, "Evergreen" from A Star is Born (co-written by Paul Williams--coincidence?--with Barbara Streisand) is not as catchy as this tune.

I don't know who sung this song originally. But it's Jodie Foster lip-synching the performance (and I love how she plays it--especially when Parker has her interrupt her performance by taking a drink off a passing waiter's tray). I also have to comment on Parker's direction here; is it me, or has he been heavily influenced by Bob Fosse's Cabaret, in his use of lenses and varying shots? Certainly the sexuality is there for all to see; is this perhaps the thing that's kept this movie from being appreciated? Are we all so afraid of being perverts, after the Reagan era, that we can't enjoy this perfect movie? Well...I say, screw that. The exquisite music and lyrics are by Paul Williams (whom I suspect also arranged the tune). It's impossible not to want to see this movie in full, if you haven't seen it already, after you view this (it's available now on You Tube, in parts). The fun lyrics follow the clip:



My name is Tallulah
My first rule of thumb
I don't say where I'm going
Or where I'm coming from
I try to leave a little reputation behind me
So if you really need to
You'll know how to find me

My name is Tallulah
I live till I die
I'll take what you give me
And I won't ask why
I've made a lot of friends
In some exotic places
I don't remember names
But I remember faces

Lonely
You don't have to be lonely
Come and see Tallulah
We can chase your troubles away, oh
If you're lonely
You don't have to be lonely
When they talk about Tallulah
You know what they say
No one south of Heaven's
Gonna treat you finer
Tallulah had her training
In North Carolina

My name is Tallulah
And soon I'll be gone
An open invitation
Is the road I'll travel on
I'll never say goodbye
Because the words upset me
You may forgive my goin'
But you won't forget me

Lonely
You don't have to be lonely
Come and see Tallulah
We can chase your troubles away
If you're lonely
You don't have to be lonely
When they talk about Tallulah
You know what they say
No one south of Heaven's
Gonna treat you finer
Tallulah had her training
In North Carolina

Forgotten Movie Songs #16: "Da Butt" from SCHOOL DAZE

I felt like hopping up the pace of the songs featured in this series, so I thought of this wild number from Spike Lee's 1988 quasi-musical School Daze. Filmed partially at Atlanta's Morehouse College, the oldest black university in the nation (where Lee attended before moving on to NYU's film school), this free-wheeling picture charts a few days in the lives of students pledging fraternities, partying, and squabbling about surprising racial schisms within the black community. The film wasn't well-received upon its release; it was considered rather lightweight in parts, and iron-handed in others (particularly in its memorably jarring ending). But I remember really liking it in 1988; I considered it an ambitious sophomore effort from writer/director/star Spike Lee, whom I thought stepped up his indie game following his smash 1986 debut She's Gotta Have It.

The cast is uniformly committed, with a sharp blend of then-newcomers (Lee, Giancarlo Esposito, Tisha Campbell, Bill Nunn, Roger Smith, Kyme, Joie Lee, Rusty Cundieff, Branford Marsalis) and veterans (Lawrence Fishburne, Ossie Davis, Joe Seneca, Art Evans and Samuel L. Jackson). The interplay between the groups leads to scenes like this one, in which the college kids have a run in with some townies, led by the always powerful Jackson. I really like the dialogue here:



And School Daze explored an issue I never knew existed before I saw it: the overt racism to which lighter-skinned blacks subject their darker-skinned fellows. This explosive theme is especially highlighted in an old-style musical number between two groups of girls, the Wannabes (who wanna be white, with their treated hair) and the Jigaboos (who like the natural look) in the excellent Bill Lee-penned "Straight and Nappy." I also liked how the movie portrays the frat life as a raucous bummer. On top of all this, School Daze has a true flavor of the South, without all the abject, unthoughtful idiocy usually found in movies about the region (it's refreshing that there's not a white person in sight in School Daze).

Of course, my favorite sequence in it remains the party scene where the joint is rollin' to the band E.U., performing "Da Butt." It's a hilarious song with lotsa naughty lyrical work ("Doin' da butt!"). The tune, with music and lyrics by Marcus Miller and Mark Stevens, is a radically catchy 80s soul/dance song that's blossomed into a classic, just as the film has, I believe. So, here is the Spike Lee-directed video for E.U's "Da Butt," with the lyrics following it.



Alright. Come on. Sing it one time
(Ee-yeah yeah. Ee-yeah yeah yeah yeah)
Sing! Ow!
(Ee-yeah yeah. Ee-yeah yeah yeah yeah)
Ha! Ha!

Walked in this place surprised to see
A big girl gettin' busy, just rockin' to the go-go beat
The way she shook her booty sho' looked good to me
I said, 'Come here, big girl, won't you rock my world
Show that dance to me.' She was

CHORUS:
Doin' da butt.
Pretty, pretty
When you get that notion, put your backfield in motion, hey
Doin' da butt.
Hey sexy, sexy
Ain't nothing wrong, if you
Wanna do da butt all night long

(Ee-yeah yeah. Ee-yeah yeah yeah yeah)
Ow, what you gonna do about it
(Ee-yeah yeah. Ee-yeah yeah yeah yeah)
Shake it!
(Ee-yeah yeah. Ee-yeah yeah yeah yeah)

I took that girl out on the floor
She rocked me from the backside
We did the butt til it made me sore
Now, it's a physical thing, but not hard to do
You just shake-a shake shake shake
Shake-a shake shake
Doin' the butt the whole night through, come on

REPEAT CHORUS

That's right! Shake your butt.
Come on! Gimme that butt! Gimme that butt!

Tanya got a big ol' butt (oh yeah?)
Theresa got a big ol' butt (oh yeah?)
Irene got a big ol' butt (oh yeah?)
Melissa got a big ol' butt now
And Sonya got a big ol' butt (oh yeah?)
And Shirley got a big ol' butt (oh yeah?)
Ol' Tammy got a bubble butt (oh yeah?)
Little Keisha got a big ol' butt, now, gimme the butt!

(Ee-yeah yeah. Ee-yeah yeah yeah yeah)
I'm gonna drop you lines, before we set up
We're screamin' at girls with the big ol' butt, sing it
(Ee-yeah yeah. Ee-yeah yeah yeah yeah) Ow!
(Ee-yeah yeah. Ee-yeah yeah yeah yeah)
I want your butt.
That butt.
That big ol' big ol' butt. Ow!

REPEAT CHORUS

Forgotten Movie Songs #15: "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?" from FAME

It's a tiny little scene in a sort of great big movie. It stars only one character--not the scads of kids we remember pouring out of the front of New York's High School for the Performing Arts during the performance of its #1 Oscar-winning title song. And, yet, Paul McCrane's single solo musical performance seen in 1980's Fame remains a fan favorite in a picture filled with great music. The score's main writer, Michael Gore, picked up two Academy Awards for his work on Fame (and was nominated for a third, for writing the moving "Out Here On My Own" for Irene Cara to sing at the piano midway through the movie). But, even though McCrane wrote the precise music and lyrics to this lonely ballad, he hardly got any recognition for it (he did get a Grammy nomination out of the deal, though, as a contributor to the soundtrack; he also sang the vocals to another track called "Dogs In The Yard").

In the film, McCrane plays Montgomery Macneil, a soft-spoken acting student whom we think has a crush on one of our female leads (the cute Maureen Teefy as Doris Finsecker). Seeing them together, a mutual friend--comic actor Ralph Garci (the always reliable Barry Miller)--decides to sharpen his wits on the boy, especially after Montgomery reveals his homosexuality to the class in a soul-baring monologue (where would the TV show Glee be without this movie?). While Doris and Ralph are out one night, getting stoned and taking in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Montgomery is left alone in his Times Square flat to ponder his seclusion, with only a guitar in which to take comfort. I love this relaxed, urban taste to this scene--how it begins with a beautiful late 70s Times Square vista (complete with ads for the Broadway productions of Grease and Annie), and then centers in on this little red dot way up in the sky, where Montgomery sits, lit by a flashing red neon sign. This IS the definition of isolation on film. By the way, there is nothing in Fame that hints at McCrane's future in portraying two notable villains--the doomed Emil in Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop, and the sharp-tongued Dr. Robert Romano on the long-running TV drama ER.

Interestingly, the song would not have been included in the film had director Alan Parker not heard McCrane singing it on-set; McCrane had written the song in high school and, sensing its teenagery perfection, Parker instantly crafted a scene around it. The song is called "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine," and its words and music are by singer Paul McCrane. Judging from all the gushy videos up on YouTube for this song--like this one I've included (because MGM has blocked all other clips, damn them)--there are more than a few people who agree with my loving this song:



Is it okay if I call you mine?
Just for a time
And I will be just fine
If I know that you know that I'm
Wanting, needing your love
Oh

If I ask of you is it all right
If I ask you to hold me tight
Through a cold, dark night
'Cause there may be a cloudy day in sight
And I need to let you know that I might
Be a-needing your love
Oh

And what I'm trying to say isn't really new
It's just the things that happen to me
When I'm reminded of you

Like when I hear your name,
Or see a place that you've been
Or see a picture of your grin,
Or pass a house that you've been in
One time or another.

It sets off somethin' in me I can't explain.
And I can't wait to see you again.
Oh, babe, I love your love
Oh

And what I'm trying to say isn't really new
It's just the things that happen to me
When I'm reminded of you

Forgotten Movie Songs #14: "Tell Me" from ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE

The ending to James William Guercio's Arizona highwayman cop film Electra Glide in Blue has cinematographer Conrad Hall's camera performing an awe-inspiring pull-back from the final image, thus dwarfing our film's hero, Robert Blake, by having the valley's buttes swallow him up with their majesty. When paired with the epic ode to a lost America, called "Tell Me," the shot--in spite of its beauty--becomes an unforgettable picture of sadness. This uncommon character study/murder mystery justifiably became a cult sensation after its disappointing release in 1973. And I believe both the song and the score--each written by Guercio--have a lot to do with its appeal. (The very cult-flavored supporting cast--including Mitchell Ryan, Billy Green Bush, Royal Dano, Elisha Cook Jr., and Jeannine Riley--deserves some credit, too.)

Guercio wrote, produced and directed his one and only film after becoming a distinctive, Grammy-winning producer and songwriter for jazz/pop outfits like Blood, Sweat and Tears and Chicago. He did go on to produce one of Hal Ashby's last movies, 1981's little-seen Second Hand Hearts, again with Robert Blake and co-starring Dyan Cannon. But his time seemed taken up with running his Caribou studios in Colorado's Rocky Mountains (at least until it burned down in 1985). And though he was later an owner of the Country Music Channel, Guercio pretty much escaped the music industry to delve into the cattle and oil-drilling business. I get the impression that, despite his director's commentary for the MGM-released DVD, Guercio doesn't very much want to revisit his dalliances with the movies and music, because it's very difficult to hear his work anywhere but on YouTube these days (and posts featuring "Tell Me" are constantly being taken down by, I assume, requests from the songwriter, and then put back up again by fans who love the song). Nevertheless, a re-release of the score to Electra Glide in Blue is definitely in order; there's clearly a market for it.

The song is called "Tell Me." The music and lyrics are by James William Guercio, and they are powerfully performed by Terry Kath, the late lead singer for Chicago who, with Peter Cetera, makes key cameos during the film's most exciting sequences.



Tell me about the sun
Tell me about the rain
Tell me about the fields
Tell me about the plains

Will they come again
I don't know
Will they ever come again
I don't know

God above, is there not anything that we might do
To try and make this world of ours a better place for me and you?

Tell me all about man
Tell me so I can understand
Tell me somebody all about wars
Please try and tell me just how much more

Oh pray it's not too late
Oh no
Please everybody, everybody, everybody pray it's not too late
It's not too late

Oh come on, mmmmm
Yeah come on
Lay down a little prayer for us
Come on, say a prayer for us, please

God Bless America today
God Bless America today

(repeat)

Forgotten Movie Songs #13: "Truck Turner" from TRUCK TURNER

Isaac Hayes wanted desperately to play John Shaft in Gordon Parks' landmark 1971 actioner Shaft. But Parks went another way. Instead he tapped Hayes to write the songs and score for Shaft, and for that effort, Hayes became one of the first black artists to ever win the coveted Academy Award, for his blazing title song (which went on to also win a Golden Globe and four Grammies).

It would be a few years before the undeniably charismatic Hayes would get his chance to fill the big screen. When the opportunity came, it came large. In Jonathan Kaplan's boisterous 1974 picture Truck Turner, Hayes becomes the shit-kicking, mama-lovin' detective that Richard Roundtree's Shaft could only hope to be. Hayes turned out to be a bigger movie star than Roundtree, rounding out his career in the late 90s as the unmistakable voice behind South Park's Chef.

That aside, Truck Turner stands as the best of all the blaxploitation movies (barring maybe Pam Grier in Coffy and the searing Across 110th Street). It's a tough, funny, skanky take on small-time crime, and, as such, the film sports a song that might overtake the "Theme to Shaft" in pure, chocolate, salty balls. With a wakka-wakka guitar line that zooms and rips at the gut, and a horn section that weathers that wound, Isaac Hayes' theme song to Truck Turner definitely wins the award for the song you'd most want to accompany you in a bar fight. It's pure freakin' genius.



There's some dudes in a bar
With busted heads and broken jaws
What hit 'em?
Truck Turner

There's some men in their graves
Who blew those pimps away?
Truck Turner

There's a girl that's so fine
With stars in her eyes
Who's in love and who loves her?
Truck Turner

Forgotten Movie Songs #12: "I Will Always Be With You" from VOICES

Jimmy Webb deserves a medal for being one of America's great songwriters. Though he's a musician and performer, he's not someone you can recall seeing play live. He's mainly become famous for his radically dramatic songs alone. You know his smash hits, even if you think you don't. Here's a sample:

**"MacArthur Park" (performed by Richard Harris and Donna Summer)
**"By The Time I Get To Phoenix" (performed by Glen Campbell and Isaac Hayes)
**"Wichita Lineman" (performed by Glen Campbell)
**"Up, Up and Away" (performed by The Fifth Dimension)
**"Galveston" (performed by Glen Campbell)
**"The Worst That Could Happen" (performed by Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge)
**"Didn't We" (performed by Frank Sinatra, and Richard Harris)
**"Just This One Time" (performed by Glen Campbell and Cher)
**"That's All I've Got To Say" (performed by Jeff Bridges)
**"The Moon's A Harsh Mistress" (performed by Linda Rondstadt, Judy Collins, and Joe Cocker)
"All I Know" (performed by Art Garfunkel)

In 1979, Jimmy Webb--after becoming a multi-Grammy-winning, purely songwriting superstar--wrote a few songs for a little romantic film called Voices. In it, Michael Ontkean played a wannabe Brooklyn songster who falls in love with a deaf Manhattanite dancer, played by Amy Irving. Voices still remains one of my most desired DVD releases; it's a cult item unlike any out there. Those that have seen this pure, precious tale have never forgotten it---it's impossibly romantic. The interesting thing is that Robert Markowitz's film retains a gritty, urban feel, thanks to its scuzzy locations and its precise supporting cast (including Godfather veteran Alex Rocco, Fame and Saturday Night Fever sport Barry Miller, and legendary acting teacher Herbert Berghof, all of whom played Ontkean's immediate, impatient, blue-collar family).

Never, in Voices, do we not believe in the love story at its center. Jimmy Webb's stunning song "I Will Always Be With You" arrives at the film's ultimate point. It's the culmination of a very dramatic and stressful story (though the movie is delicate, it also maintains an air of NYC grittiness). But, when its moment arrives, the song packs a helluva punch. Michael Ontkean is lip-synching to former Guess Who frontman Burton Cummings as he serenades his co-star here, performing the song in sign language (which, even typing this, makes me tear up; I'm such a wuss). "I Will Always Be With You" is a whole lot better than countless other love songs that've captivated wide audiences. It is certainly one of cinema's finest forgotten songs:



Clocks in the parking lot
Watching the time
Watch on a steeplechase
Starting to chime
Timepieces holding
My life in their hands
Always remind me
Behind me, behind me

But I will always wait for you
Take my time and count on you
Somehow I know I'll make it through
Until I feel you
Until I hear you
Until I see you

Second hand sweeping
Our minutes to trial
Ticking the future
Away on the dial
But I'm not afraid
I'll be late for a while
The future surrounds me
The moment has found me

And I will always be with you
Take my time and count on you
Somehow I know we'll make it do
Now that I feel you
Now that I see you
Now that I hear you

And here is Jimmy Webb at the piano, with Art Garfunkel and Cher debating who loves Jimmy Webb more, and then launching into a medley:



In another Jimmy Webb clip, from the UK's Jools Holland, we find, he was born in Oklahoma and raised in East Texas:



And finally, his greatest song, performed by the man himself:

Forgotten Movie Songs #11: "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" from A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN

I've always been a fan of Charles Schulz's barely-veiled version of himself, Charlie Brown. Of course, Charlie first came to life on television in 1965, via the holiday perennial A Charlie Brown Christmas. But it took four years for this success to hit the big screen. In 1969's A Boy Named Charlie Brown, our hero dares to take on the challenges of the school spelling bee, making it all the way to the state finals, with gloriously predictable results.

A lot of people have nothing but bad things to say about the big-screen Peanuts movies. But I still love them (I think the franchise should be revived a la the upcoming Winnie the Pooh, which looks brilliant). A Boy Named Charlie Brown has many fine moments, my favorite being this magnificently colorful tribute to the piano-playing Schroeder and his idol, the imposing Ludwig Von Beethoven (who composed the accompanying "Moonlight Sonata"); I seriously think this is one of the greatest animated sequences in movie history--right up there with anything in Fantasia, which is obviously an influence here:

But I must give credit to Rod McKuen. He wrote and performed the first song heard in A Boy Named Charlie Brown, and thus garnered his second Oscar nomination (the same year, he was nominated for Best Song for performing his tune "Jean" on the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). He was nominated also that year for contributing to the Charlie Brown soundtrack, but was there relegated to the Best Original Song Score category. Thus, this track meets my Forgotten Movie Songs criteria for not being an (a) top 40 hit, or (b) being an Oscar nominee.

Even in watching the following clip again--which suitably begins Bill Melendez's feature film--I'm moved by both McKuen's scratchy vocal performance and his undeniably syrupy-sweet song (wonderfully arranged by John Scott Trotter). While being a tad unctuous, I think McKuen's words still perfectly express what all fans truly feel about Charlie Brown, and so I decided to include his song here. It deserves to be a Tony Bennett-styled standard, in my opinion.

The song is called "A Boy Named Charlie Brown," and the music and lyrics are performed by Rod McKuen (who was endlessly referenced henceforth in Schulz's daily comic strip).



Like the shadows of the morning
That climb up to the August afternoon
Charlie has a way
Of pickin' up the day
Just by walkin' slowly in a room

Maybe it’s a kind of magic
That only little boys can do
But seeing Charlie smile
Can make you stop a while
And get you feeling glad you’re you

He’s only a boy named Charlie
A boy named Charlie Brown

He’s just the kid next door
Perhaps a little more
He’s every kid in every town

Well, the world is full of lots of people
Here and there and all around
But people after all
Start out as being small
And we’re all a boy named Charlie Brown

Now the shadows of the morning
Have gone beyond the August afternoon
And Charlie's had his day
His very special day
His morning and his evening and his noon

The world is full of lots of people
Here and there and all around
But people after all
Start out as being small
And we’re all a boy named Charlie Brown