“We Don’t Care” by Manfred Hübler & Siegfried Schwab from Vampyros Lesbos Sexadelic Dance Party (Soundtrack to Vampyros Lesbos) [1970]

David Axelrod met Barbarella in the score of Vampyros Lesbos, a sexy European exploitation film about female vampires. Soft gore with soft core, said one critic of the 1971 cult classic. The soundtrack by Manfred Hübler and Siegfried Schwab (recording under the name Vampires’ Sound Incorporation) itself became a cult classic, enough to earn the CD reissue I found. Have a listen above. Watch the (NSFW) film trailer here (worse quality but with English subtitles here). Read more and find a few links here (also the source of the paraphrase above).

“You Can Get It If You Really Want” by Jimmy Cliff [1972]

The soundtrack to The Harder They Come opened with such an optimistic, encouraging song that its resulting popularity now appears as self destiny. The modern production values of Jimmy Cliff’s songs—getting people to feel like they were listening to contemporary soul music—further eased an American audience into a full-out reggae album. In Jamaica and the UK, the song already had a strong history. Desmond Dekker released his fantastic recording in 1970 and saw it climb to #2 in the Britain.

The song is still powerful. Music History listeners, whatever it is that you’re after, this song will put you in the right mindset. Go get it!

“Bachelor in Paradise” by Henry Mancini and His Orchestra [1961]

There were certainly some interesting moments last night, but I survived my bachelor party. As you’d expect, I heard a few stern warnings about marriage and hints that it’s not too late to turn back. The Henry Mancini song above offers one such hint: 

When she sighs 
And her baby-blue eyes 
Embrace your face 
Lies, all lies 
What the lady wants 
Is your closet space. 

Still, I think I’m still pretty set on having a wedding next weekend.

“I Like the Look (Vocal)” by Henry Macnini and His Orchestra [1967]

We’ve been conditioned by the narrative of mainstream history to identify the 1960s with folk (especially protest) music, the British invasion, soul, and psychedelia over other significant forms of music. We forget just how popular easy listening was and how broad an audience it reached. Artists like Henry Mancini, Les Baxter, Herb Alpert and Sergio Mendes found repeated success with a mix pop covers, film themes, and original stand-alone compositions.

“I Like the Look (Vocal)” comes from the soundtrack to the 1967 film Gunn, featuring a score by Mancini. The film, based on the Peter Gunn television series from earlier in the decade, was advertised as Gunn… Number One!, but did not earn enough money or praise to warrant a sequel.

I can’t be sure, but based on the lyrics I think the song is a response to Burt Bacharach’s hit “The Look of Love,” which was first released by Dusty Springfield in January of that year (Gunn hit theaters in June). Either way, the two are quite similar.

“Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” by Nino Rota [1968]

Much more than today, forty years ago film scores provided material for various forms of pop music. The next three songs in our survey of “pop” instrumentals from 1968 each originated in the cinema.

For today’s song, I chose the original “Love Theme” from Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. On most materials related to the film, the song is called “What Is a Youth?,” based on the masquerade scene in which words were put to the tune. Other lyrics have been added by later songwriters, but the melody remains as haunting and profound as the universal theme of lost youth it represents. 

In 1969, Henry Mancini released a more famous instrumental, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in June, but most people will always associate the song with the best Romeo and Juliet on film.

“Manhã de Carnaval” by Luiz Bonfá and João Gilberto [1959]

The 1959 Portuguese film Orfeu Negro (known to the English-speaking world as Black Orpheus) was the world’s introduction to bossa nova. To your average viewer it may have seemed a foreign novelty at first glance, but musicians took note. When American jazzmen like Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd collaborated with Brazilians Jobim and Gilberto in the early 1960s, bossa nova exploded into a worldwide phenomenon. It became the twist for sophisticated minds.

Returning to Black Orpheus, although Antônio Carlos Jobim composed a number of songs for the film, fellow Brazilian musician Luiz Bonfá contributed the most lasting piece to the soundtrack. Played and sung beautifully by João Gilberto, many English releases call “Manhã de Carnaval” the “Black Orpheus Theme.” Surely, it is among the most sublime original compositions for any film.

Though arguably overshadowed by the later work of Gilberto and Jobim, Bonfá deserves equal credit for his work in the early years of the style. Just like them, he participated in the 1962 concert/album Bossa Nova at Carnegie Hall and collaborated with many notable jazz musicians from around the world.

“I Wanna Be Loved By You” by Marilyn Monroe [1959]

My fiancee and I registered at our first store for our wedding this evening. I thought I should post something cute, since it really forced home the fact that we’ll soon be living together (which is exciting, but still quite surreal). Since she is a beautiful, natural (Norwegian) blonde (see below), my mind wandered to the classic Marilyn Monroe flick Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Well, as I should have realized, the hit songs she did with Jane Russell in that film don’t put the best spin on relationships.

I opted instead for Monroe’s cover of “I Wanna Be Loved By You,” because it captures the loving, if quirky spirit of our relationship. Helen Kane first made the song famous in the late ’20s. Her seemingly improvised “boop-boop-a-doop” hook inspired the character Betty Boop a few years later. In the 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot, Monroe (and her dress) wrung every drop of sexuality from the song, while still ostensibly maintaining her character’s innocence. Marilyn Monroe was always innocent, you know.

“To Itch His Own” by Carl Stalling and the Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra [1958]

After watching the completed cartoon, one naturally assumes the music was written after the fact to match the mood swings and timing of what the animators had already come up with. Reality, however, leads us to one of the more overlooked musical innovators of the 20th century.

Carl Stalling composed one original score per week for 22 years at Warner Brothers Studios, bringing America a unique style of music only heard as the backing track to Loony Toons and Merrie Melodies. Stalling wrote each score at the same time animators drew each cartoon. They worked from the same preliminary storyboard and only interacted to match timing cues. Stalling then led the Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra (a live orchestra, I remind you!) to record each short, maintaining precise timing with a click track and metronome. I haven’t found a definitive conclusion about this, but Stalling is one of three men credited with the invention of the click track. 

When divorced from the visuals and sound effects, the music is striking for its sharp changes in tempo, dynamics, and mood. Though containing the same instruments as your average 50-piece orchestra, the music bears almost no relationship to Western concert music. It has no exposition or development, few repeated themes, and quotes music from almost any style. Stalling was well-known for borrowing melodies from the swing/pop/experimental composer Raymond Scott (most famously this), after Scott sold the rights to his music to Warner Brothers.

“To Itch His Own” was the final score Stalling composed for a WB cartoon before retiring in 1958. A darn good one it was. The wild juxtapositions of mood, tempo, and dynamics are easily apparent, as is the melody from Johannes Brahms “Cradle Song,” now better known simply as “Brahm’s Lullaby.” Listen to the music above, then watch the full cartoon again. It’s a style that holds a unique place in American music and we can credit it almost entirely to Carl Stalling. 

“Rock Around the Clock” by The Sex Pistols [1979]

Random Music History Song of the Day

In 1978, with the band falling apart, The Sex Pistols were asked to record music for a mockumentary film about their rise to fame. Malcolm McLaren, the band’s manager, had envisioned the film and had put significant quantities of the Sex Pistols’ earnings towards it. Not surprisingly the film focussed on McLaren’s supposed control over the band. By the time the soundtrack was to be recorded lead singer Johnny Rotten had departed the band after having (legitimate) issues with almost every member. Not long after, Sid Vicious also became fed up with McLaren and quit the band.

Given the turnover, it’s amazing the soundtrack came together at all. As such it was a hodgepodge of early demos, post-Bollocks singles recorded by Vicious and others, novelty covers of Sex Pistols’s songs by other bands, and new tracks recorded with temporary fill-ins for Rotten and Vicious. Ronnie Briggs and Edward Tudor-Pole took lead vocals on two tracks each. One of Tudor-Pole’s two tracks with guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook was “Rock Around the Clock,” a cover of the game-changing Bill Haley and the Comets song that introduced the world to rock and roll in 1955. I think the implication is obvious.

The film, titled The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, was not released until May of 1980. The soundtrack, though, was released over a year earlier, in late February 1979, less than a month after Sid Vicious died from an overdose of heroin following his release from jail.

That pretty much sums it up… Everything about the band was a mess and you can hear it in the music - no matter who took lead vocals. Or as they say in the film, “everything they touch turns to shit!”

“Tango Whiskeyman” by Can [1970]

Random Music History Song of the Day (catch-up edition)

In early 1970 Malcolm Mooney, lead singer in the German experimental band Can, returned to his native United States of America for psychiatric reasons. Now lacking a lead vocalist, the rest of the musicians did what any sensible band would do: choose a random itinerant Japanese street poet found performing outside a cafe in Munich. The first recordings the band made with new singer Kenji “Damo” Suzuki were for a number of film soundtracks. One example, “Tango Whiskeyman,” was written as the character theme song for a protagonist (The Kid) in the German spaghetti Western Deadlock. Within the year Can released a compilation album of music from those films, creatively titled Soundtracks. That album became arguably more famous in the long run than any of the films in which Can’s music appeared.