This entry for our cinema series comes from a reader in Bend, Oregon:
The movie Billy Elliot (UK, 2000) is about a boy in a coal-mining town in northern England who wants to become a professional ballet dancer. (The movie was adapted into a musical.) His goal does not go over well with his family or in his town, especially given the setting during the bitter coal miners’ strike of 1984-85. Billy’s frustrations come to a head in a dance scene:
The song is The Jam’s Town called Malice, itself a hard-hitting expression of frustration. (It was #1 on the British charts when it was released in 1982.) It’s a wonderful scene, even out of context. The volume is a bit low in the video, so crank it up.
Billy Elliot is played by Jamie Bell, and the only other film I’ve seen him in—and I coincidentally just saw it a few weeks ago—is Nymphomaniac, the deeply dark 2013 psychosexual study from Lars von Trier. Bell plays a baby-faced professional sadist known as K, and he lets out his aggression with a riding crop rather than tap shoes. The film is pretty forgettable, but the casting choice is canny.
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I’d like to submit Birdy’s cover of Passenger’s “Let Her Go.” Passenger’s song never really hit me; their flurry of analogies always seemed too cliche. However, Birdy delivers the lines with heartbreak on her lips; every word she utters her voices quakes; she seems on the verge of tears. The piano arrangement itself is okay, I guess, but there’s something in her delivery that yearns for lost love. Put your headphones on and close your eyes. This version is totally superior to Passenger’s hit in every conceivable way.
Couldn’t agree more, which makes it baffling that the Passenger original has nearly a billion views on YouTube, more than I can recall for any video on the site ever. And it’s not just me; the Wiki list for all-time most viewed videos puts Passenger’s at #25. Help Birdy catch up.
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A reader, Joseph, calls the soundtrack to Antonia Bird’s Ravenous “one of the most under-appreciated scores of all time, not surprising for a gory dark comedy about cannibalism in the American west”:
The film itself deserves more credit than is generally warranted for its bitter, bloody takedown of 19th century American imperialism and manifest destiny, but honestly the music is some of the most dramatic and hilarious that I think has ever been set to moving image. Yes, the music itself is funny. It is also bone-chillingly suspenseful in other moments, seamlessly blending both Americana and horror-film idioms.
In this clip you get a sense of just how good it is at building the tension of the scene, followed by a desperately needed catharsis that is delivered by an amazing fiddle and banjo-fueled chase, only briefly glimpsed here.
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Earlier this week, Chance the Rapper tweeted out three crying emojis, three high-five emojis, and one prayer-hands emoji because The Atlantic had written about his great new mixtape Coloring Book. Now he’s namechecking Ta-Nehisi in song:
The track is a blast. The Fader’s Jordan Darville has the context:
“GIRLS @” is the latest track from Joey Purp's upcoming project iiiDrops—third eye drops? three drops?—out May 27. The new song features another Chicago rapper you may have heard of: Chance The Rapper (he and Joey are #justlikebrothers, according to the Instagram Joey posted above. Awww.)
Both rappers are looking for a woman companion, but their preferences couldn’t be more different: Joey’s on the prowl for girls with the credit cards and the high heels/ the Mercedes Benz with the big wheels, while Chance is a manic pixie dream girl kind of guy,Where are the girls at with the book in the club/ With the reading glasses on getting shook in the club/ Reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, something SpottieOttieDope/ With the 'Why I let them drag me here?' look in the club.
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You’re doing cross-genre covers?! Be still my heart. Many favorites, but I’ll narrow it to two entries in the grin-worthy category of “Brits with acoustic guitars covering Britney Spears”:
Watch for Thompson’s Renaissance-style deconstruction at 3:23, and Travis’s ability to play the whole song completely straight. In interviews, the band professes a deep respect for what they call “the perfect pop song.”
P.S. No, I’m really serious. That Travis song was revelatory.
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In the middle of Chance the Rapper’s new album, Coloring Book—right after a dance tune about “drinking all night” and before a song called “Smoke Break”—a full gospel choir breaks out. “How great is our God,” they proclaim, drawing from the immensely popular 2004 Chris Tomlin single. The song creates a bit of genre cognitive dissonance, combining the squeaky-clean, saccharine world of contemporary Christian music with a rap album full of creative beats and lyrics about everything from drug addiction to kids’ books from the ’00s.
But here’s the well-known secret of gospel music: It’s incredibly catchy. The better question is why more artists don’t include song-length samples of this kind of music in their work.
The gospel intro, credited to “my cousin Nicole,” isn’t just for show. Chance’s lyrics are theological, too. He talks about “faith of a pumpkin-seed-size mustard seed,” a reference to the biblical parable in which Jesus teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven grew from just a mustard seed. He uses words like “exalt” and “glorify.” And “the book doesn’t end with Malachi,” he says—in other words, the Bible doesn’t end with the New Testament.
Spencer has a great review of the album here. He focuses on the abundance of Millennial nostalgia:
In the context of Chance’s ministry across the album, it’s a reminder of an empathetic truth that’s obvious to people early in life, when the world and everyone in it seems new. Religion can remind adults of that truth if they’ve forgotten it. So can music.
Update: A reader, Michael, points out that I made a mistake. I meant to say that Chance’s line “the book doesn’t end with Malachi” could be interpreted as “the Bible doesn’t end with the OldTestament,” rather than the New(the Hebrew Bible ends with the Book of Malachi). Michael goes on to offer his own fascinating interpretation of the line:
It seems to me that Chance is pushing back against a belief that has become pervasive on the internet, a belief that can be summed up in the phrase, “the god of the Old Testament” (the implication being that the god portrayed in the Old Testament is the vengeful “rape and pillage” kind of deity indicative of religion in the ancient world, as opposed to the peaceful God preached in the Gospels and New Testament). The Malachi line is making the connection that the same God that appears to Israel in the Old Testament (the God, it should be reminded, who delivered the Hebrews out of bondage in Egypt—a story with a long history in African American theological history) is the same that brings faith, hope, and love in the New Testament.
Got other thoughts about Chance the Rapper’s religiosity? We’re curious to hear them: hello@.
Reader Ryan offers up a truly transformative pick for the cover series: Cat Empire’s version of “Hotel California.” As he describes it, “The Eagles sung in French by an Australian Latin jazz/ska band. Good times!”
Update from another reader named Ryan, in Denton, Texas:
Look, if you’re going to talk about covers of “Hotel California,” you may as well merge this discussion with your series of songs used in movies. The use of The Gypsy’s Kings cover of “Hotel California” is absolutely essential in introducing the character of Jesus Quinta:
That creep can roll, man.
The Atlantic abides.
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The latest reader entry for our cinema series comes from Al Berg:
From the movie The Doctor, Laurie Anderson singing “Strange Angels” perfectly captures the heightened sensibility and wonder of life as death approaches:
If, like me, you haven’t seen the movie yet, here’s part of the synopsis to better understand the scene:
Dr Jack MacKee is a successful surgeon at a leading hospital. He and his wife have all the trappings of success, although Jack works such long hours that he rarely has time to see their son and has become somewhat emotionally dead to his wife. His “bedside manner” with his patients, in many cases seriously ill, is also quite lacking. [...]
Returning home from a dinner party, Jack has a coughing fit. His wife Anne is shocked when he coughs up blood all over her and the car. In an examination, Jack has a sample of a growth removed from his throat. The biopsy comes back positive for cancer. [...] As Jack experiences life as a patient, there comes a clearer understanding of the emotionally void hospitals, some doctors, and his own colleagues can display. He befriends June Ellis, a fellow cancer patient who has an inoperable brain tumor.
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A reader brilliantly blends our cover-song series and our cinema series by noting an emotionally complex and devastating scene from director Tomas Alfredson:
I can’t think of a cinematic cover song better-deployed than Julio Iglesias’s disco-fied version of Charles Trenet’s “La Mer” at the end of 2011’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Those who have read the book or seen the film or the classic BBC/Alec Guinness series will understand the tortured love-hate, self-or-country dynamics at work in the scene. Those who haven’t … will need to in order to fully appreciate it! The scene is way too layered and complex to summarize. Suffice it to say that the wistful, nostalgic lyrics, contrasted with Iglesias’s jauntily triumphant treatment of the tune, perfectly match that complex dynamic, as well as the larger story arc: the downfall, redemption, and return of loyal English spymaster George Smiley to his beloved Circus (MI6), seen at the very end.
And in every way, led by the music but extending to the coloration and the wide shots, the scene breaks cleanly with the beautifully brooding, dark, discordant, claustrophobic film that preceded it. If you’ve ever wondered just how much “design” contributes to the emotional feel and weight of a great film, this engaging look at TTSS's palette and patterning is a fascinating primer.
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No series on the artful use of songs in cinema would be complete without the haunting violin of composer Clint Mansell, performed by the Kronos Quartet, which stalks the tragic characters of Requiem For a Dream throughout the film and culminates in this closing montage:
My nomination comes from Almost Famous, one of my favorite movies ever. While many may choose the use of “Tiny Dancer,”I’ll instead point to a little scene that’s my favorite in the movie, set to Cat Stevens “The Wind”:
You never know if it’s happening in reality or inside William Miller’s head, but it is perfectly representative of soul of a film, which is about people dreaming and not wanting to wake up. It is an imagining and depiction of the beautiful futility of holding on to a moment and its afterglow, the sustain after a guitar solo or, if you will, an empty auditorium.
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If a multinational company based in Belgium can rename its beer “America,” then a Swedish folk group can cover an iconic song with the same name.
With news that Budweiser will change its label to say “America” up until Election Day, I was reminded of one of my favorite Simon & Garfunkel songs, one that inevitably makes it on every road trip playlist of mine. It’s hard for me to fully harness Simon & Garfunkel covers—see, for example, this one of “The Sound of Silence” by heavy metal group Disturbed that is inexplicably heard on rock stations nationwide right now—but the First Aid Kit cover of “America” is a beautiful exception:
The sister duo, whose Old West feel might make you want to ride a horse through the desert at dusk, released the cover in 2014. Two years earlier, the duo performed the song in front of Paul Simon at the Polar Music Prize, and he rewarded them with a standing ovation. For their version of the song, the sisters dropped the saxophone and pipe organ of the original and paired their lofty vocals with an acoustic guitar, piano, and string orchestra—a gorgeous mix for the 1968 protest song (which, fittingly to Budweiser’s framing for the election, was used in a Bernie Sanders campaign ad).
Indeed, at bars across the country this summer, Americans will be singing, “I’ve come to look for America.”
Update from reader Jim, who begins, “Greetings (as my draft board put it to me)”:
Holy shit, that version of “America” is gorgeous! I rarely like cover versions as well as originals, but First Aid Kit’s cover was better than the original. Now for the follow-up: Have they recorded “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her?” I can’t think of any group I’ve heard that could cover that more perfectly.
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