The Projector #62: The One Right Song (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

A while back when we did our episode on How to Build a Girl — and I can’t remember if I said this within the episode or elsewhere — I complained about tired song choices used to establish an era. The late-’60s has Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” Other periods have their own cliches. In How to Build a Girl, if I’m remembering correctly, it was Salt ’n’ Pepa’s “Push It” that got me thinking about this. That song has become shorthand for “It’s the ’90s!” (even though it was released in 1987). (Okay, I just tried to Google this to see if it’s accurate and I think my impression was based mostly on How to Build a Girl and an episode of Derry Girls. So “Push It” may not be the best example, but I think the general point still stands.)

But just as the easy choice can be distractingly familiar, the opposite is also true. I watched a movie today that established early on a lot of thought had been put into the song selection. (It’s the subject of an upcoming episode, so I’ll not name it just to build suspense.) A news item about Ronald Reagan establishes that it takes place at some point in the 1980s. Not long after, there’s a scene that narrows it down when a character goes for a car ride accompanied by the Heart song “These Dreams,” a number one hit in March of 1986.

That’s a song I’ve heard hundreds of times over the years (and I’m old enough to remember it from when it was a hit). It’s not a song that’s been appropriated to death by movies and television, but it’s the perfect song for a late-30s mom to be listening to as she smokes and drinks coffee in the mid-‘80s. (Fine, the movie is The Nest and the mom is Carrie Coon. It's good. You'll like it.)

Are there any songs you’re sick of hearing as shorthand for a particular era? Have you had a similar moment with an especially deft song choice? I’ll throw out another example: “Under the Milky Way” in Donnie Darko, another much-loved song that suggests a particular moment in time that hasn’t become a cliché. It’s striking how much difference the right song can make, but it’s also hard to figure out what makes the difference between one that’s just right for a movie’s purposes and one that’s been done to death.

Speaking of well-chosen songs, we hope you enjoy our current episode on True Stories, the first of a two-part venture into David Byrne’s America. (Look for American Utopia next week.)

Want some articles to read? May we suggest…

• For Vulture, Keith Phipps looks at 15 essential conspiracy theory movies for our conspiracy theory-filled age.

• For The New York Times, Manhola Dargis writes about her love of action movies starring women, and how it’s changed her thinking about the way female bodies get represented on screen.

• Does Netflix hate Chicago? It sure seems to, observes our friend Rachel Handler for Vulture.

• Can the Nicolas Cage movie Primal explain the 2020 election? For Uproxx, Brian Grubb has some thoughts.