So, in Part II, here’s more bleak and sinister children’s nursery rhymes, which we advise that your refrain from turning off your bedroom lights.

Dark Nursery Rhymes

Three Blind Mice

Three Blind Mice is an English nursery rhyme and musical round,a song form in which three to five voices simultaneously sing a simple melody in unison or octaves starting at different times, often with each performer beginning two measures after the previous singer.

Lyrics

Below is Three Blinde Mice (1609) with its original lyrics, by the possible author, Thomas Ravenscroft.

Three Blinde Mice
Three Blinde Mice,
Three Blinde Mice,
Dame Iulian,
Dame Iulian,
the Miller and his merry olde Wife,
shee scrapte her tripe licke thou the knife.

Simple, yes. But despite the simplicity of the lyrics, many literary scholars have struggled to understand its historical significance. This has led to the speculation that it was written earlier and refers to Queen Mary I of England, the very Bloody Mary, that is Mary, Quite Contrary, which some believe to reference Queen Mary I and her mass execution of Protestants during her reign, where we had examined in Part I, which also included further horrendous acts of torture and death. Now that most of us have eyes which are not blind, let’s examine the blinding and the execution of the three Protestant Bishops, believed to be the Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer. But, it turns out, they were burned at the stake, and not blinded; although it’s possible if the rhyme was made by crypto-Catholics, where the mice’s blindness could refer to their Protestantism. However, as can be seen above, there is no mention in the earliest lyrics about harming the three blind mice, and the first known date of publication is 1609, well after Queen Mary died.

Three Blind Mice only entered children’s literature in 1842 when it was published in a collection by James Orchard Halliwell.

Variations

Amateur music composer Thomas Oliphant; Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana #7; Joseph Holbrooke in Symphonic Variations, opus 37; Joseph Haydn for Symphony 83 (La Poule); Piano Concerto No. 4 by Sergei Rachmaninoff,who was criticized as resembling Three Blind Mice; and the theme can be heard in Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 IV. Allegro con fuoco.

As this is Hollywood, Three Blind Mice was used as a theme song for The Three Stooges, with the obvious assumption that Larry, Curly and Moe and Larry are the Three Blind Stooges.

And leave it to the James Bond franchise, were a calypso version of the tune with new lyrics by Monty Norman was recorded by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires for the film, Dr No (1962), which we all understand that only Sean Connery is the real 007. The reworked rhyme alludes to the three Afro-Caribbean assassins whose deadly march through the streets of Kingston, Jamaica. opens the film. Other Jamaican versions include dance hall artists, like Josey Wales and Brigadier Jerry.

Jack and Jill: Not the Power Couple We Thought

Jack and Jill, a traditional English nursery rhyme, was originally spelled Gill in the earliest version of the rhyme where the accompanying woodcut showed two boys at the foot of the hill. Throughout the 19th century new versions of the story were written featuring different incidents. A number of theories continue to be advanced to explain the rhyme’s historical origin.

The earliest version of the rhyme was in a reprint of John Newbery’s Mother Goose’s Melody, thought to have been first published in London around 1765. The rhyming of water with after was taken by Iona and Peter Opie to suggest that the first verse might date from the 17th century.

Jack and Gill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Gill came tumbling after.

According to Nursery Rhymes of Mother Goose, the very popular Jack and Jill Children’s Nursery Rhymes, was believed to be first published in the mid-1700. Sad to say that this alluring power couple may actually be referring to a 17th century popular tax on alcoholic beverages. Some believe that the supposedly cheerful nursery rhyme actually has its origins in the reign of King Charles I of England – who you’ll hear more about in the Real Story of Humpty Dumpty below – and his attempts to raise taxes on measures of liquid. The original version of the rhyme featured Jack and Gill, as noted above, was eventually changed to Jill in later publications. A Gill also happened to be another term for a quarter pint measure of liquid, while a Jack, short for a Jackpot or a double jigger, was a measure of volume equal to a half-pint, according to the original Encyclopaedia Britannica.

According to the Owlcation website, when King Charles I attempted to increasing taxes on Jacks, the English Parliament refused to do so. Undeterred, the king decided instead to simply reduce the volume a Jack would hold, by lowering the imperial measure of the half-pint line, which was indicated by a crown symbol. Thus, Jack lost his crown and a reduced volume on the Gill soon followed, or came tumbling after. And with the volume on Jacks and Gills reduced, King Charles I managed to get his tax increase without technically raising the prices on the beverages. It was a big win for Charles but the English Parliament were not done with him.

The Real Life Story of Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again!

This nursery rhyme isn’t about a giant egg, as suggested by most illustrations in children’s books, but the actual Humpty Dumpy was a cannon used during the English Civil War. It was destroyed by cannonballs, fell into a marshland, and could never be repaired. Then the illustrator of Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll randomly decided to illustrate the poem with a picture of a large egg, which many of regard as the real history of the broken egg.

The English Civil War

The English Civil War was actually a series of civil wars between Royalists and Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642. The main cause was Charles I’s belief in the divine right of kings to rule, and the need for money to fund his court and wars. The parliament wished restrict the powers of the king. The English Civil War ended with this inscription: The majesty King Charles I passed through this hall and out of a window nearly over this tablet to the scaffold in Whitehall where he was beheaded on January 30th, 1649.

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

In recent times there has been some question as to whether or not this nursery rhyme is as innocent as we all grew up; believing it to be, particularly with the use of the color black and the word master. Sorry, Trumpsters, most scholars believe the rhyme has nothing to do with race at all; so need to worry that your suburban neighborhoods will never be the same again. Apparently, the rhyme is about the Great Custom tax on wool where a third of the sales revenue of wool went to the king, a third was to be given to the church, and the remaining third went to the farmer who did all of the work.

More recently the rhyme has been alleged to have a connection to the slave trade, particularly in the southern United States. This explanation was advanced during debates over political correctness and the use and reform of nursery rhymes in the 1980s.

What is a Black Sheep?

According to the Merrian Webster Dictionary, the definition of a black sheep is an idiom used to describe disfavoredor disreputable member of a group, especially within a family

Psychological Ramifications

People who self-identify as the black sheep of their family tend to struggle with their self-esteem and self-concept throughout life. When you have a poor self-concept, it affects all aspects of your life such as intimate and social relationships, job performance, satisfaction, and achievement, and even a willingness to take risks and following your heart.

This Little Piggy

Yes, a heart wrenching children’s rhyme, about a very cute pig with a basket in its arms, euphorically skipping down the road to the grocery store, bless your heart. Sad to say, This little piggy went to market means that it was more than likely butchered and sold off to a market, or was on its way to the slaughterhouse, to be slaughtered and served on someone’s plate. If the first pig went to the market to get slaughtered, then the little piggy staying home refers to a pig not yet ready to eat, and that must stay home to mature. The little piggy having roast beef is about fattening a pig up, while the fourth piggy that gets none is too small to go to the market, managed to survive another day without being slaughtered and is safe from Republican South Dakota Gov Noem, that is, for now.

How Popular is Pork in the U.S.?

Pork ranks third in annual U.S. meat consumption, behind beef and chicken, averaging 51 pounds per person.

Who is a Barbarian?

Listening to the sounds, Baa, Baa, is the origin of the Greek word, barbarian, which means: any person who did not speak Greek, spoke an incomprehensible language which sounded similar to a noise that a sheep makes.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

The original line in this rhyme read, three maids in a tub and the story goes this is about peep-shows at fairs where a person could pay to ogle at women sitting in a tub enjoying the company of one another. And my mother had simply informed me it was about taking a Saturday night bath.

Well, how clean are we?

Americans have a reputation for a cleanliness, which fuels a $3.1 billion body soap industry, yet recent studies show that Americans are actually quite average when compared to how often people shower worldwide.

In a Euromonitor survey, Brazilians and Colombians took the lead with more than one shower per day on average, with Australians, Middle Easterners, Mexicans and Indonesians coming in not too far behind. Americans, meanwhile, averaged a bit less than one shower a day, along with Spaniards, Indians and the French. Brits were on the low side of showering, with the Japanese and Chinese coming in the least frequent of all countries in the poll, with an average of about five showers a week.

Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater

A dark side, you say. But wait a second, the husband, named Peter, locks away his wife, due to her fondness of sharing her private body parts with other men. And what could poor Peter do? So he murdered her and stuffed her dead body into an extremely large pumpkin, and then he lived happily ever after.

History of the Pumpkin

Though many cultists of the U.S.’ final emperor assume that the pumpkin first came from the U.S., but were first cultivated in the Tehuacan and Oaxaca valleys in the United Mexico States around 6,000-5,000 B.C.E. Nevertheless, pumpkin pies are an essential component on many U.S. Thanksgiving tables at the count of around 50 million pumpkin pies are devoured every November.

From T-Boy food critic, Audrey Hart: Everyone should know how to make a homemade pumpkin pie.

So, here’s a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie recipe submitted to T-Boy by Randy Scott:

This traditional, simple scratch recipe makes the ideal Thanksgiving dessert. Skip the canned pumpkin and store-bought crust and make your holiday pumpkin pie from scratch with a flaky homemade pastry crust and a deliciously spiced pumpkin filling.

Homemade Pumpkin Pie Ingredients

These are the ingredients you’ll need to make this pumpkin pie recipe from scratch:

• For the crust: all-purpose flour, salt, shortening, and cold water
• For the filling: cooked pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt

Here’s a brief overview of what you can expect when you make Randy Scott top-rated homemade pumpkin pie:

1. Mix the flour and salt. Cut in the shortening, then add the water.
2. Shape the dough into a ball. Roll it out on a lightly floured surface.
3. Cut the rolled dough and fit it into the pie pan.
4. Beat the filling ingredients together, then pour it into the prepared crust.
5. Bake in a preheated oven until a knife comes out clean

To Prepare Mashed Pumpkin:

Cut a fresh pie pumpkin in half. Scoop out and discard seeds and stringy portions. Leave skin on and cut pumpkin into chunks. Measure out 1 1/2 pounds for this recipe to yield 2 cups of mashed, cooked pumpkin. If your pumpkin is larger, consider cooking 3 pounds and doubling the pie recipe above to make two pies.

Place pumpkin chunks in saucepan over medium heat with 1 inch water; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until tender, about 30 minutes. Drain and cool. Remove and discard peel. Return pumpkin to the saucepan and mash with a potato masher or use a food mill until smooth.

Filling:

• 2 cups mashed, cooked pie pumpkin
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon salt

Pastry Crust:

• 1 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup shortening
• 3 tablespoons cold water, or more as needed

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Make the pastry crust: Mix flour and salt together in a bowl. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in 3 tablespoons water, one at a time, until dough is moist enough to hold together. Add up to 1 more tablespoon water if needed.
3. Shape dough into a ball with lightly floured hands. Roll dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Place a 9-inch pie pan upside-down on the dough; use a sharp knife to cut a circle of dough 1 1/2 inches larger than the pie pan. Remove and discard dough scraps and set pie pan aside.
4. Gently roll circular piece of dough around the rolling pin; transfer it right-side up over the pie pan. Unroll, easing dough into the bottom of the pan. Use two hands to flute the dough around the top edges.
5. Make the filling: Beat pumpkin, evaporated milk, brown sugar, eggs, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt in a large bowl with an electric mixer until well combined. Pour into the prepared crust.
6. Bake in the preheated oven until a knife inserted into the filling 1 inch from the edge comes out clean, 40 to 60 minutes. Cover the edges with foil if needed to prevent from burning as the filling cooks.
7. Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature before serving.

Filling:

• 2 cups mashed, cooked pie pumpkin
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon salt

Filling:

• 2 cups mashed, cooked pie pumpkin
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon salt

As Ms. Hart said, the recipe seems to be easily done.

And our article closes with, Sleep well, readers, as the day turns into night.

The post ‍Beyond T-Boy’s Journey into the Curious Case of Nursery Rhymes appeared first on Traveling Archive.

In this T-Boy article, please consider it to be an invitation to join me on a personal journey in search of the source of many of the cinema’s most popular musical soundtracks. I’ve tried to make the categories specific, where the composer worked with the director before the film was shot, or used a pre-existing composition after the movie was in the can. Categories also include the innovation of using songs in films that have not been done before. I hope this makes sense once you see the line-up of film soundtracks on the list, where you’ll also notice that there are many others not included which would make the list too long – so here’s a few below:

But first, let’s begin with a quotation by French director, François Truffaut:

“It’s very difficult for a musician to make music for a film, because he is shown a film at a stage of the assembly where the lengths are false, the rhythm is not there. It seems as it is the film, but it is far from the final result. I think you really have to know the cinema and really love it so that you can see the film at that stage and imagine its intentions and its qualities. The musician is called at a time when the director is a little demoralized. We count a lot on him. We say all the time in the editing rooms: ‘It will work out with the music!’ In short, we wait for the musician as we wait for a sort of savior.” – François Truffaut

PSYCHO

Hitchcock and Herrmann

When Alfred Hitchcock, the master of everything, wrote his screenplay for 1960’s Psycho with composer Bernard Hermann at his side, every musical note was placed on his storyboard long before the film was shot. And by the time all the sketches were finished, which also indicated the exact placements of edits, camera angles and lighting, sound effects and more, Hitchcock would become bored before his camera even rolled because all the hard work had already been done before.

So, let’s look at the chilling shower scene in Psycho, where Hitchcock drew and Hermann scored such a precise storyboard, so precise that the audience actually thought that Anthony Perkins’ character’s knife had slashed Janet Leigh’s body.

Overall, Herrmann wrote the scores for seven Hitchcock films, from The Trouble with Harry (1955) to Marnie (1964), a period that included Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho. He was also credited as sound consultant on The Birds (1963), as there was no actual music in the film, only electronically made bird sounds, which succeeded in making some of us have a lifetime distaste for birds. This also applied to Psycho, too, where others were actually afraid to take a shower after seeing the film. Hitchcock coined a knew film term with The Birds, where a high-angle shot looking down on the subject, is now called a Bird’s-Eye Shot. The perspective makes the subject appear short and trivial, often illustrating a fatalistic doom.

It should be noted that Hitchcock’s psychological thriller Vertigo, topped the 2012 poll of the British film magazine, Sight & Sound’s, The 50 Greatest Films of All Time.

Later, many film directors would use new musical compositions by Herrmann, along with Hitchcockian images, which included Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and François Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black (1968). And also with Hitchcock emulater, Brian De Palma, in his film’s Sisters (1972) and Obsession (1976), in an attempt to capture the magic in which Herrmann and Hitchcock had created.

ALEXANDER NEVSKY

Eisenstein and Prokofiev

In 1938, composer Sergei Prokofiev and film director Sergei Eisenstein worked closely together throughout the production of the film, Alexander Nevsky. Sometimes Eisenstein would do a short episode and give it to Prokofiev to set to music and other times the composer would write a piece and Eisenstein would change the rhythm of the film’s action to suit the music. The climactic Battle on the Ice is spectacularly staged, which starts with a low rumbling of the chorus that depicts the troops riding toward each other. The Russian and Teutonic hymns are played again to represent the opposing forces. The pace quickens to a gallop and then to a cacophonous clash of cymbals, horns, and drums that conjure up the chaos of a medieval battle.

Eisenstein and Prokofiev’s matching of sound to action has made orchestral art music accessible to the general public and also established the use of compositional music as an important part of creating a masterpiece.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

Leone and Morricone

Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles with more than 400 scores for cinema and television

His film scores for director Sergio Leone were regarded just an important as his images. The Spaghetti Western maestro incorporated Ennio Morricone’s musical scores, not just to be background music, but to define many of his characters in his films. In Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), each of the five main characters, played by Claudia Cardinale, Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards and Gabriele Ferzetti have their own theme song in the music score. After listening to one of Morricone’s film compositions, audiences felt as if they were blessed with a sense of heavenly euphoria. In fact, with Once Upon a Time in the West the choruses really did sound like angels singing.

Many important films directors also included Morricone’s film scores into their films, as did T-Boy favorites, Terence Malick in Days of Heaven (1978) and 1976’s Novecento (1900) by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Ennio Morricone also influenced many younger artists including Hans Zimmer, Metallica, Radiohead and the Dire Straits with fingerpicking guitarist virtuoso, Mark Knopfler, who was inspired to  compose and produce his own film score soundtracks, such as Scottish film director Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero (1983) and Comfort and Joy, as well as Cal (1984) and The Princes Bride (1987). And Knopfler was particularly taken by Leone and Morricone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, too, and created the Dire Straits – Once Upon A Time In The West (1979), which you can visit below.

THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD

Powell and Rozsa

Francis Ford Coppola once said that his favorite movie is the British film adaption of The Thief of Bagdad (1940) directed by Michael Powell, along with Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan. Michael Powell’s films were profound in in their technicolor imagery, in particular when his co-director was Emeric Pressburger, but they reached unsurpassed heights with the haunting movie music by famed composer Miklos Rozsa. The Thief of Bagdad is scored for full orchestra with extensive percussion (including gong, cowbells, glockenspiel, xylophone, jingle bells, harp, celesta, piano) and both mixed and children’s chorus as well as solo singers. Later, after a frequent revisit to the film, I was surprised upon reading, “There is no real melodic focus, for it is essentially a rhythmic piece, with the vocal parts providing a stabilizing centrum, and with lyrics such as ‘sweet fruit,’ and ‘melons’ sung in syllabic fashion. Unsung words are also noted, such as ‘Oh you nasty little wretches, Oh you dirty pack of thieves.'”

The overall effect of the piece is not really that of an ensemble number in a musical, where there is usually a strong statement of the song melody with refrain by the chorus, but rather a group recitative in an opera. Miklos Rozsa is best known for his nearly one hundred film scores, but nevertheless maintained a steadfast allegiance to absolute concert music throughout his career what he referred to as his, “double life.”

I VITELLONI, LA STRADA &

LE NOTTI DI CABIRIA

Fellini and Rota

Witnessing the images of Italian Maestro, Federico Fellini, could be an enthralling, hypnotic and mesmerizing event. But what made his images work was due to the brilliance of the musical compositions of another Italian Maestro, Nino Rota. In Fellini’s early work, the films they did together, included The White Sheik (1952), I vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954), and Le notti di Cabiria (1957). At first Rota’s Le notti di Cabiria score sounded comedic, almost a bit cumbersome, like Chaplin’s earlier Mack Sennent Keystone Kops shorts, after music was later added. But then Rota’s music would transition into the heart wrenching quest of the road for the hope of better things to come. Yes, Fellini was Rota, and Rota was Fellini. And Fellini was highly influenced by Chaplin too; in particular, during his Neo-Realist period. With La Strada, translated in English as The Road, Fellini’ wife of 50-years, the remarkably talented, Giulietta Masina, really does go on the road, and plays Chaplin’s Little Tramp.

Both La Strada and Le notti di Cabiria won Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and were described as having been inspired by Masina’s humanity. Nino Rota scored nineteen films written by Fellini, and all of Fellini’s directorial features from 1952 to 1979, the year of Rota’s death at 67-years-old.

Rota wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions at an average of three scores each year over a 46-year period. Among the films included, were Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo, Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, (in particular, the Love Theme) and Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather Trilogy, which were often better known with casual movie goers than the films he did with Fellini. But, many of us will always remember Nino Rota best for his collaborations with Federico Fellini.

CHINATOWN

Polanski and Goldsmith

Composer Jerry Goldsmith’s musical score for Chinatown (1974,) considered by many critics as one of the cinema’s greatest neo-noirs, transforms movie goers back to a time and place that had no longer existed. At first Goldsmith’s Chinatown Love Theme sounded simple, played by a lone trumpet solo, yet somehow felt lush and romantic. Apparently, director Roman Polanski insisted that Jerry Goldsmith should be a last-minute replacement for Phillip Lambro, though not necessarily due to Goldsmith as a superior composer, but because he was one of the last Hollywood composers to have grown up in the film’s period setting, and was able to capture the mood of the not-so-innocent era. And, as a last-minute replacement, Goldsmith’s contract stated he was to submit his work in ten-days. Yet, Goldsmith delivered compositions which had emotional hooks, providing Chinatown with its own identity.

But how really simple is Jerry Goldsmith’s masterful score, which features a unique ensemble which features strings, four pianos, four harps, guiro, and solo trumpet, which the composer revealed he saw in his head while watching the movie for the first time. The latter instrument went on to define the film noir aspect with its hypnotic bluesy theme for Jack Nicholson’s private eye, and love theme for the mysterious Evelyn (Faye Dunaway). But the score to Chinatown has a darker, more avant-garde heart to it, where Goldsmith presents a series of unsettling cues for the movie’s thriller and mystery elements, remaining a stark contrast to his memorable opening theme. Consider when John Huston’s Noah Cross is introduced. We hear sound from the lowest registers with bells and harp joined by guiro to create dissonance and motion, while strings and eventually a trumpet resonates on an alternate theme. The Jake and Evelyn passage introduces a more contemporary 70’s sound with a beautiful reading of his main theme; here Goldsmith captures intimacy and anticipation with tremolo strings and a delicate piano motif. Later, Chinatown producer, Robert Evans, commented that Goldsmith single handily saved the picture.

JULES AND JIM, DAY FOR NIGHT &

THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR

Truffaut and Delerue

In a span of 24-years, between 1959 and 1983, composer Georges Delerue collaborated with François Truffaut on ten films, which included Jules and Jim (1962), where Jeanne Moreau stars as Catherine, as an alluring young woman whose enigmatic smile and passionate nature lure Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) into one of cinema’s most captivating love triangles. For many of us, it was the first time we heard the French expression, ménage à trois. In 1973, Truffaut directed Day for Night (La nuit américaine), a film that changed my life, which chronicles the troubled production of a film melodrama, and the various personal and professional challenges of the cast and crew. It stars Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Dani, Alexandra Stewart and the floppy-haired actor, Jean-Pierre Léaud, often signaled out as Truffaut’s son or alter ego, due to his appearances in six films and one short of the director’s 21 films. And also for his recurring performances as Atonine Doniel, from 1959’s Les quatre cents coups (the 400 Blows), based on Truffaut’s childhood, to the lighter 1979 comedy-drama, f L’amour en fuite (Love on the Run).

Truffaut cast himself as the director within the film, in Day for Night, whose character is partially hearing impaired, due to his position in the French army’s artillery division during WW2. Truffaut was regarded to be kind and generous, and would often cast handicapped people into his films to remind audiences that they too exist, and show us and other disable people, that they have found a way to march through life as well. Dare I add, that I once sent him a spec script without ever having met him, and to my surprise, he read it and introduced me to the former Czechoslovakian film director Ivan Passer to direct. And this is one of the reasons why I write this article today, for Truffaut’s passion for cinema embodied us to love it just as much as he did, too.

The last collaboration between Truffaut and film composer, Georges Delerue, was The Woman Next Door (1981), where two ex-lovers, played by Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant (Truffaut’s companion, who also appeared in his next and final film, Vivement dimanche! (Confidentially Yours). Delerue also composed film music for Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Renaiss and Bernardo Bertolucci. Truffaut/Delerue are regarded to be in the same pantheon of Fellini/Rota, Hitchcock/Hermann as well as the many pairs that T-Boy just coined in this article, above and below.

Pre-existing compositional music used in film

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Kubrick and Classical Music

Many of us fell out of our seats when Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) began with the bombastic opening theme from Richard Strauss’ classical tone poem, Also sprach Zarathustra. Strauss’ symphonic tone poem was popular among classical aficionados in 1968, but today its popularity has surged to such unfound heights, that it is frequently used in other films, TV shows and commercials where manufacturers sell everything from washing machines to trucks and perfume. Kubrick wanted 2001: A Space Odyssey to be a primarily nonverbal experience that did not rely on the traditional techniques of narrative cinema, where pre-existing music would play a vital role in evoking moods and emotions.

Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey continues to be profound for its innovative use of classical music taken from existing commercial recordings, in contrast to most feature films, which the images are generally accompanied by elaborate film scores or songs written specially for them by professional tunesmiths. Kubrick’s soundtrack also raised the profile of other classical composers and their compositions, which also includes, Johann Strauss II and his 1866 Blue Danube Waltz, where Kubrick made the poetry of motion with the association of the spinning motion of the satellites and the dancers of waltzes. And, there are also compositions by György Ligeti, who was almost completely unknown in 1968, with Atmosphères, which evokes a sense of timelessness where the listener is lost in a web of texture and tonality, Requiem For Soprano; Gayane Ballet Suite (Adagio), and Lux Aeterna; as well as Aram Khachaturian’s Adagio from third Gayane ballet suite.

And, who could not forget about HAL: The 9000 series computer – You know, the most reliable computer ever made. And, we are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error and No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information.

So, let’s close with HAL’s singing the 1892 song, Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two), written by songwriter Harry Dacre, at the moment when his logic fades to simplicity, and he regresses by 40 years. Which is also notable as the first song ever performed by a computer – specifically, the IBM 704.

The song takes HAL back to its childhood, and emphasizes that Dave, play by Keir Dullea, is killing that child just as much as he is dismantling a malfunctioning computer system. Adding to the overall themes and interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL’s callback to an earlier system command suggests that evolution may be just as possible for computers as it is for humans, given a sufficient level of sentience.

Film critics ponder about HAL

Andrew Sarris:

Film critic and father of American Auteurism, Andrew Sarris, initially panned Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but later changed his opinion after seeing it “under the influence,” which he later said was a contact high. Was Kubrick a visionary? Well, according to Sarris, he did tell us how boring space travel would really become.

“2001 now works for me as Kubrick’s parable of a future world toward which metaphysical dread and mordant amusement tiptoe side by side. Even on the first viewing, I admired all the stuff about HAL literally losing his mind. On second viewing, I was deeply moved by HAL as a metaphor of reason afflicted by the assaults of neurotic doubt. I have never seen the death of a mind rendered more profoundly or poetically than it is rendered by Kubrick in 2001.”

Robert Eggers:

US filmmaker and production designer, Robert Eggers, is best known for directing the horror films, The Witch (2015), The Lighthouse (2019), and the historical fiction epic, The Northman (2022). It was reported to T-Boy that Egger would direct a remake of FW Murnau’s 1922 German Expressionistic masterpiece, Nosferatu, also remade by Werner Herzog in 1978.

I had once thought that Murnau’s Nosferatu was the first horror movie, but later learned that director and magician, Georges Méliès, predated it in 1896 with Le Manoir du Diable. As Kubrick once took us on a trip to the moon in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Méliès did so too, but much earlier with his 1902 film, A Trip to the Moon, which took audiences on a trip into the world’s first science fiction film.

“HAL is the most human character in the film despite his perfect computing abilities. The genius of Kubrick is that he makes you sympathetic to HAL comparable to Frankenstein or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. HAL made a mistake, like all humans have done once. Yet, that mistake cost him his life. His final pleas before the Bowman character disconnects him are saddening and remorseful, connecting the viewer’s humanity to the most artificial character in the entire movie.”

A Hard Day’s Night

Lester and The Beatles

Director Richard Lesters’ A Hard Day’s Night is a 1964 musical comedy film starring the Liverpublian rock band, which many of us refer to as The Beatles. The narrative is written by Alan Owen which covers two typical madcap days in the life of the Beatles, where the Fab Four struggle to keep themselves and Paul McCartney’s mischievous grandfather in check while preparing for a live TV performance. The songs featured are written by Lennon and McCartney, which include the title song, taken for a nonsensical Ringoism. Also in the film is I Should Have Known Better, played in a railway storage car where Harrison met future bride, model and muse, Patti Boyd; If I Fell with Lennon at lead vocals in an attempt to heal Ringo’s hurt feelings; and McCartney’s vocal lament about his girlfriend and female actor, Jane Asher, famous for her performance in Jerzy Skolimowski’s stunning 1970 psychological masterpiece, Deep End. Jane’s brother is Peter, the other half of the duo, Peter and Gordon, famous as well for their hit single recording, A World Without Love, penned by McCartney, natch’.

I’m Happy Just to Dance with You is often mistaken as a composition by George Harrison due his taking the lead vocals. But he had a lot of help with John and Paul’s lyrics and harmonies. The film closes with abbreviated versions of Tell Me Why and She Loves You, where the lads conquer the TV stage, complete with screaming fans in the audience. Among the many highpoints is in the middle of the film when the Fab Four break out of the restrictive studio building and charge down the fire escape’s stairs to an open field where they would swing, jump and dance to the explosive, Can’t Buy Me Love. Did this sequence by Richard Lester, who was already famous for his The Running, Jumping & Standing Still (1959) short film, he made with Spike Millidan and Peter Sellers, give birth to MTV? All I can say is, let’s see it again.

It should be noted that in this film, Lester and Owen defined the persona of the four Beatles that many of us use today: John as witty, Paul as cute and choir boyish, George quiet, and Ringo sad and lonely. In The Beatles’ final song release, Now and Then, many us were surprised to see Lennon cutting-it-up, twisting the night away, playing the clown. But when we look at past footage, John really does play the clown, and loves being one.

Did someone really say that A Hard Day’s Night is best to be enjoyed when you’re young and a committed Beatlephile. Let’s remember that film critic, Andrew Sarris, once proclaimed, A Hard Day’s Night to be one of the four greatest musical films of all time.

Richard Lester followed up with the 1965 Beatle musical Help! As can be expected the songs were remarkable and often served as soundtracks in our own lives, but some found it to be bizarre when Lennon was asked to compose the title song for a musical-comedy-adventure, and he delivered a plea for others to Help me! during a rough passage in his life. The narrative of Help! played almost like a James Bond spoof, which didn’t work with moviegoers about an eastern cult and a pair of mad scientists, who are obsessed with obtaining a sacrificial ring sent to Ringo by a fan. Nevertheless, the soundtrack was released as the band’s fifth studio album, and proved to be another Beatle smashing success.

And let’s see what T-Boy’s own Emperor of Oldies has to say about it: My favorite Beatles album is “Help!” (the Capitol version) but that may be because I was slightly too young to experience “A Hard Day’s Night” in real time like I did with the “Help”! LP. One thing I noticed about the song performances in the “A Hard Day’s Night” film… they appear to have taken the audio from the LP tracks and slowed them down drastically…. always wondered why? It’s a great album however, with one clunker in my view… “When I Get Home.”

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

Bogdanovich and Country Western Music

Set in 1950-51, Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 film, The Last Picture Show (1971) is about people who live in a small, dying north central Texas town that never really should have existed. It is a sad story where most of the students at the local high school will probably go nowhere in their lives and are aware of it. Bogdanovich’s images of the tired landscape of this piece of Texas tell us what we already know. But the music Bogdanovich uses in the soundtrack is profound, so profound that it was never done before. It consists as a compilation of popular Country & Western music, heard throughout the film from real sources in real time; music in car radios; on records in homes and on TV; in diners, pool halls and jukeboxes; and at dances and parties, perfectly setting the time period, and most importantly hearing what the characters hear, and, in a sense, defining who they are and who they’ll always be.

The movie begins with Hank Williams’ Country and Western song, Why Don’t You Love Me (Like You Used to Do) and follows with nine other Hank Williams’ songs, and also songs performed by Tony Bennett, Eddy Arnold, Frankie Laine, Pee Wee King, Hank Snow, Jo Stafford, Webb Pierce, Tony Bennett, Johnnie Ray, Lefty Frizzell, Eddie Fisher and Kay Starr.

As noted above, the soundtrack of The Last Picture Show is all source music from the early 1950s. At the time of the film’s release there were only two soundtrack LPs available, one from MGM records that included Hank Williams songs and one from Columbia with the selections from their catalog including Tony Bennett and Johnny Ray songs. The CD release from El Records is the first to collect all 28 cues from the movie. Several of these cuts are rare and difficult to find. So, kudos to El/Cherry Red Records in the UK for putting this collection together.

MARIE ANTOINETTE

(Sofia) Coppola and Teenage Angst

Sofia Coppola’s historical drama, Marie Antoinette (2006), is filmed in a stylistic display of sweeping monarchical images, while the movie’s soundtrack consists of punk and indie rock songs. Recently, there has been much discussion regarding the dialectical collision of sound and images, primarily due to Jonathon Glazer’s The Zone of Interest. Sofia Coppola does this as well, creating a unique film experience with eye candy for your eyes and something a little bit more darker for your ears.

The narrative of Marie Antoinette takes us on a journey into a world of despair about a 15-year-old Austrian Hapsburg archduchess, Maria Antonia, who is far too young to be the dauphine and then the queen of France. Her struggle is reflected in the 1970s and ’80’s contemporary music by the Gang of Four, the Strokes and New Order.

We first see Kirsten Dunst in the title role, wearing a decadent feathered headpiece, sticking her finger into a cake’s frosting while the Gang of Four’s Natural’s Not in It, is heard in the background. The Strokes’ What Ever Happened? plays as Marie longs for an extramarital affair that is finally over. And Ceremony by New Order dominates the scene of Antoinette’s 18th birthday party. What can be said, other than Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette soundtrack tells us that teenage lust, angst and loneliness continues throughout eternity.

Marie Antoiniette: A Historical Lover of Dogs

Marie Antoiniette’s disparity is illustrated in an early moment in the film, upon her arrival at the French border, when Marie’s new royal family ruthlessly grabs her childhood pet dog, a Pug named Mops, for the more appropriate French Poodle. Thankfully, there was a happy ending in real life, where they were reunited, apparently due to the intervention of new king, her husband, Louis XVI. Sofia Coppola’s film does not close with revealing Queen Marie Antoinette’s less-than happy ending with her beheading, but it is believed that she carried her pet Papillon with her to the guillotine.

Oddities & One Shots

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER

Stigwood and the Bee Gees

Despite John Travolta’s pulsating dance moves on the disco floor, without South Australia’s producer, Robert Stigwood’s 1977’s Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, it would not be considered a Hollywood classic. Stigwood licensed a mostly fictional 1976 article about working class Italian-American men with menial labor some jobs, who would spend their entire paycheck for a Saturday night at a local Brooklyn discothèque. It seemed obvious that the young men were on a fast track to nowhere, but while drinking and dancing on the floor, it was clear that everyone had a chance to become a star.

Saturday Night Fever‘s soundtrack stayed on top of the Billboard charts for six months, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. Stigwood was the manager of the Bee Gees and commissioned the Brothers Gibb to contribute three of their songs: Stayin’ Alive, How Deep Is Your Love, and Night Fever – which all became number one hit songs. Yvonne Elliman’s version of If I Can’t Have You, which the Bee Gees also wrote, topped the charts, as well. Good or bad, Stigwood’s soundtrack has been ingrained into our consciousness and used so often that it’s regarded more than a cliché. Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees later commented that every time he turned on the radio a Saturday Night Fever song was playing, to the point where he would become ill.

THE 007 FRANCHISE

Barry and Bond

The narrative of 1964’s Goldfinger is typical of many of writer Ian Fleming’s plots: While investigating a gold magnate’s smuggling operation, James Bond uncovers a plot to contaminate the Fort Knox gold reserve. Guy Hamilton, an English film director, who directed 22 films from the 1950s to the 1980s, including four James Bond films, is noted in the credits as director. But, with no offense to Hamilton, this is a franchise movie, and does it really matter who directed it. So let’s give it to the duo producer team of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, better make that Cubby Broccoli, who took exception when people assumed that his last name stemmed from a vegetable. Later, it was revealed that it really did, but his family replied it was the opposite, with broccoli name after the Broccoli family.

A viewing of Goldfinger will take you into a sinister world of suspense, intrigue and betrayal. And you’ll see in action: Sean Connery as MI6’s 007, the only real Bond; Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, who made the 1960’s seem so carefree and less PC; Harold Sakata’s Oddjob, the man with a sharp hat, who gave us a new name and new meaning to Head Over Heels; and finally, Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger, who turns everything he touches into gold, though still not determined if his hands ever touched a former US president’s gold-plated bathroom toilet.

The soundtrack is the work of composer John Barry, who created a musical vocabulary that will forever be synonymous with 007. Barry is also famous for his first marriage to the deceased and equally iconic, Jane Birkin. While it was hard to choose between his Bond soundtracks, Barry perfected his sound with the bold and brassy theme for Goldfinger, performed by Shirley Bassey.

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

Arkush/Dante and the Ramones

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is a 1979 musical comedy, co-directed by Allan Arkush and Joe Dante, billed as jukebox extravaganza. The title cut is a song performed by the rock band, the Ramones, who were an American punk rock band formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens in 1974. Known for helping establish the punk movement in the United States, the Ramones are often cited as the world’s first true punk band. Though initially achieving little commercial success, the band is seen today as highly influential in punk culture. All members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname Ramone, although none were biologically related; they were inspired by Paul McCartney, who would check into hotels under the alias Paul Ramon.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll High School theme song opens with an extended drum beat, with lead singer Joey Ramone eventually singing the opening line, “Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.” And why did we include it: Let’s just say, Because it feels so goddamn good. – Attributed to Sam Peckinpah in his film, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, a 1974 Mexican-American Neo-Western.

Stay tuned for The Film Soundtracks in Our Lives, Part II: The relationship between auteur, François Truffaut and orchestral composer, Maurice Jaubert. In fact, you can see it now at https://travelingboy.com/travel/the-film-soundtracks-in-our-lives-part-ii/.

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