music to mope to
03 Feb 2007
There’s an old expression that goes something like “never listen to music curled up in the fetal position in the dark after getting dumped if you want to ever listen to that music again”, but fuckit, when have I ever heeded tradition? Besides, I can always find more. In the past couple of weeks I’ve been listening to a lot of music, but some of it is by far perhaps the best mope-music I’ve ever encountered..
The first was a happy discovery – I had popped in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (easily in my top 5 favorite movies ever), and as often happens, I realized that I loved the score to the movie as much as I loved the movie itself. This is always happening to me.. If I had a nickel for every time I realized a particular movie I like had an awesome score and it turned out to be Ennio Morricone (most recent: Lolita), I’d have, well … probably like 15 or 20 cents. But anyhow, I digress.
The composer of the score to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is Alex North, who is quickly joining the ranks of other composers I have a hard-on for. He’s most famous probably for his scores to Spartacus, Cleopatra, and the infamous rejected score for Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The whole score is great, but by far the prelude and the epilogue are my favorites – bookends containing the sum of his theme for the movie. Great, crisp, moody guitar overlaying a nice orchestral arrangement.
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Concurrently I also snagged a rather obscure album by Lalo Schifrin, called There’s A Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin On. Released in 1968, it was just an album, not a film score. It contains a cool mix of stuff, including Schifrin’s more trademark spy-ish 60’s stuff, but what really caught my ear was this beauty called Bride of the Wind. I have probably listened to it around 18,432 times so far. If I could marry a guitar-sound, it’d be this one. Sadly, such marriages are still illegal in Tennessee.
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And last but not least, thrown in for good measure, is a healthy dose of Ennio Morricone. This is a beautiful track from his score to the 1978 movie “Il Gatto”. I love it.
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Happy moping!