Fandango Soundtrack (Original Score), by Alan Silvestri

Earlier in this blog, I wrote about the make-believe soundtrack to the 1985 Kevin Reynolds film, Fandango, lamenting how an official soundtrack to the cult classic was never released. And the worst part about that musical tragedy wasn’t even the non-curated classic rock-and-roll tracks included in the film by Cream, Elton John, Carole King, and Classics IV, to name but a few; the worst part of the non-album was the missing score by the remarkable Alan Silvestri. It was a nerdy, movie music fan travesty! But I seem to lead a charmed life, submitting this particular blog post on June 8, 2013, while, unbeknownst to me, this legendary score was being planned for release by Intrada later that very month. (Thanks, powers-that-be!) I’m writing about it, here.

For this CD release, Warner Brothers provided the 2˝ 24-track scoring session master recordings, plus virtually all of the studio and engineering session documentation, allowing for a brand new, crystalline mix of the entire score. Every note Silvestri recorded is included, even though the score as heard in the film clocks-in at less than 15 minutes, due to (reportedly) “much tampering” and replacement of the score with pre-existing music by the film’s talented director. But even the complete score, itself, is brief, running just over 30 minutes: but a sublime journey, those 30 minutes. The composer has a long and successful career scoring films, and some have stated the Fandango score to be his very favorite, and if that’s true, it’s understandable why.

Silvestri’s score is a perfect accouterment to the film, combining geographically relevant elements of Mexican and Country & Western music to classical and mid-1980’s synthesizer licks that both anchor the mood to the time of its release as well as to 1971, the year in which the action of the film is taking place. Silvestri’s score, writ large, sounds like the desert in which it resides cinematically. At once sparse and echoed (“Desert Dream” and “Goodbye Friend”) as well as rich and savory (“Piano Solo” and an alternate version of “Desert Walk”), the Fandango score embodies the coming-of-age journey of Gardner, Waggener, Hicks, Dorman, and the mostly-unconscious, Lester. If I were even nerdier than I am already, I’d no doubt find a way to dub my own version of the film using Silvestri’s full score.

The CD contains three bonus tracks, “Spanish Guitar,” “Wild Percussion,” and “Desert Walk,” all of which fit the overall tone of the film and, in a different set of circumstances, could have easily found their ways into the film. But it wasn’t meant to be. But now that I finally have this treasured score in my hot little hands, I’ve taken the liberty to curate what is, for me, the penultimate soundtrack (including the unused, but no less revelatory *bonus tracks) to Reynold’s first (and best?) film, Fandango:

“Badge,” Cream

“Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting,” Elton John

“Road Trip,” Alan Silvestri *

“Ay Te Dejo En San Antonio,” Los Lobos

“It's Too Late,” Carole King

“Spanish Guitar (Duet),” Alan Silvestri *

“Spooky,” Classics IV

“Grave Stone,” Alan Silvestri

“Desert Dream,” Alan Silvestri

“Smooth Talk,” Alan Silvestri

“Fandango (Piano Solo),” Alan Silvestri

“Desert Walk,” Alan Silvestri

“Born To Be Wild,” Steppenwolf

“Taking Off,” Milton Brown And The Brownies

“September Fifteenth,” Pat Metheny And Lyle Mays

“It's For You,” Pat Metheny And Lyle Mays

“Farmer's Trust,” Pat Metheny

“Goodbye Friend,” Alan Silvestri
“Can't Find My Way Home,” Blind Faith

Must-hear Holiday-Themed, Non-Holiday Songs

People seem particularly drawn to mournful, weepy, nostalgic songs to get them through the holidays. Maybe it’s the zeitgeist of these violent times, maybe it’s just being reflective as another year comes to a close, or perhaps just gluttony for punishment, but who hasn’t lost a friend or loved-one along the way, and aren’t the holidays the mandatory time for remembering the joy and pain that accompanies these complicated memories? Whatever your seasonal symptom, the songs collected here follow this motif. And to the best of my knowledge, not one of these tunes was written as a holiday song, specifically, although some have wriggled their ways into the canon, and all have found their ways onto my Yuletide playlist. So take a listen with me, gentle readers, grab a glass of eggnog, and let the holidays begin…

“Photographs and Memories,” by Jim Croce: I think had Croce lived, he might be on his third or fourth holiday album by now. In many ways, his mellow, acoustic-driven song stylings are perfect for bummed-out tributes to the Yuletide. “Photographs and Memories” is taken from Croce’s 1972 album, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, and while never released as a single (it was the B-side to the title track for the album, which was released as a single and reached #8 on the Hot 100), it remains a perennial holiday favorite. Croce had a penchant for writing tunes that, while not Christmas songs, per se, embraced the season, like the melancholy, “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way,” which sets the tone in the first line: “Snowy nights and Christmas lights, icy windowpanes, make me wish that we could be together again.” Sigh…

“Barandgrill,” by Joni Mitchell: Mitchell’s “River,” from her legendary 1971 album, Blue, would have been the obvious choice for this list, but it’s become so commonly covered by artists for their holiday collections in the last few decades (e.g., James Taylor, Sarah McLachlan, Shawn Colvin, and Linda Rondstadt, to name but a few), that the song is now effectively co-opted for the season. But “Barandgrill,” taken from Mitchell’s overlooked 1972 masterpiece, For The Roses, provides a stream-of-consciousness, lyrical snapshot of time spent in a local truck stop café around the holidays, where waitresses are talking about zombies and exotic cocktails and “…the guy at the gas pump, he's got a lot of soul; he sings Merry Christmas for you just like Nat King Cole.”

“Love Is Stronger Than Pride,” by Sade: Taken from her super chill, lighter than air 1988 album, Stronger Than Pride, this icy breakup song was culled as a single in the spring of that year, but (sadly) failed to gain much radio play, losing ground to disposable radio crap like “Never Gonna Give You Up,” “Could’ve Been,” and “Get Outa My Dreams, Get Into My Car.” Tragic, that, as the lugubrious, frost-bitten lyrics fashion the perfect atmosphere for heartbreak: “Sitting here waiting for you would be like waiting for winter, and it's gonna be cold; there may even be snow…”

“The Hounds of Winter,” by Sting: Taken from his 1996 album, Mercury Falling, this wintery, tormented song about lost love is perfect for the holiday season. Sting thinks so, too; he re-recorded the track as a Renaissance period madrigal for his own holiday collection, If On A Winter’s Night, 13 years later. The album sounds like it was recorded in a candle-lit, haunted castle by the ocean and, at times, seems more fitting for a Celtic Samhain celebration than for Christmas. 

“Brick,” by Ben Folds Five: Catchy as it is, this is the only pop hit in my recollection that recounts the impact of abortion for two young people: in this case, Folds and his high school girlfriend (and the procedure in question happens to take place on the day after Christmas, the day for returning unwanted gifts…). Not exactly something you’d expect to hear from the Biebs or Katy these days, but in 1997 it was a moderate hit for the band, reaching the top 20 on a number of charts. I saw Ben Folds in concert (remarkably good) in the early 2000s, and if my memory serves me correctly, he made a point to disavow any political leanings when he introduced the tune. Huh.

“Late-Great Johnny Ace,” by Paul Simon: Where were you when John Lennon died? I was 9 years old and at home on that frigid December evening in 1980. I remember hearing about the assassination on television that night after dinner and the radio being flooded with Lennon songs after that for the next several months. I really wasn’t such a John Lennon fan, but I felt bad all the same. And I still do. “…On a cold December evening I was walking through the Christmas tide, when a stranger came up and asked me if I'd heard John Lennon had died. And the two of us went to this bar and we stayed to close the place - and every song we played was for The Late Great Johnny Ace…”

“Same Old Lang Syne,” by Dan Fogelberg: “Met my old lover in the grocery store. The snow was falling Christmas Eve…” So begins one of the most bummed-out, nostalgic odes to ghosts of lovers past ever. A bold move for Fogelberg, to use the frozen foods section of a grocery store as the setting for a holiday-themed love song, but that’s how it actually went down on that Christmas Eve night in the convenience store at the top of Abington Hill in Peoria, Illinois in the mid-1970’s. The actual “old lover” came out of the shadows decades later, after Fogelberg’s death and after the end of her own, ill-fated marriage to the architect, a man of whom she’d like to have said she loved, but she didn’t like to lie. 

“Levon,” by Elton John: “He was born a pauper to a pawn on Christmas Day, when the New York Times said, ‘God is dead,’ and the wars begun…” A peripheral reference to Christmas, to be sure, but Levon’s son turns out to be named “Jesus,” after all, (apparently Levon really liked the name). And sadly, as it so often goes, the boy wants to leave home, leaving Levon far behind…to slowly die, which, again, pretty much sums up the holiday season; am I right? *I kid, I kid; I’m a kidder...

“My Favorite Things,” from The Sound Of Music: In the film adaption of the play, the song is sung to the Von Trapp children to calm their fears during a scary thunderstorm. “Favorite Things” suggests the best way to find peace in difficult times is simply to think about your favorites. In this case, things like, “warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with string, sleigh bells…silver white winters…snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes.” While never mentioning the holidays outright, the imagery is a nice fit for the season, which is, no doubt, why the song started finding its way onto holiday albums as early as 1964, a year before the film was even released. While the original version is upbeat, the melancholy lyrics and the wistful melody were highlighted in even the earliest cover versions, accentuating the inherent sadness in what has become a perennial holiday classic. 

“What A Wonderful World,” by Louis Armstrong: Released in October of 1967, in the midst of the Vietnam conflict and an ever-tumultuous North American political landscape, “Wonderful World,” like “Favorite Things,” spoke of optimism and hope in difficult times, definitely a theme for the season. Not initially a hit upon release, this unforgettable track was impossible to ignore, finally making it’s way onto a pivotal scene in the 1988 film, Good Morning, Vietnam, where it struck a chord with listeners and reached #32 on the pop charts that year, over 20 years after its initial release.

“Don’t Miss You At All,” Norah Jones: Norah Jones took the world by storm with her self-titled debut album, which sold a bajillion copies in 2002, swept the Grammys, and catapulted the musician kicking and screaming into superstardom. This heartrending song drips with irony, with Jones singing, “As I sit and watch the snow falling down…I don’t miss you at all.” This song closes her second album, Feels Like Home, and provides a perfect postscript to this endearing collection of songs. It also works perfectly on my “Melancholy Holly” iPod playlist and is my go-to song on the years when I can’t make it back to the farm for Christmas. 

“The Magazine,” by Rickie Lee Jones

Rickie Lee Jones was the talk of the town when her debut album exploded onto the scene in 1979, and deservedly so. Her 1981 follow-up album, Pirates, was equally strong and much heralded upon its initial release, even boasting a “Chuck E.’s In Love” caliber single, "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking," which was criminally-ignored by top 40 radio (that, apparently, much preferred the featherweight rubbish of “I Love A Rainy Night” and “9 to 5” to Jones’ smart pop masterworks), and sadly, the exceptional album, while reaching number 5 on the album charts and achieving “gold” status solely on the momentum of Jones’ popular debut, faded quickly into obscurity after just a few months. It remains a long-forgotten pop gem.

And Jones spent the remainder of 1981 and most of 1982 touring to promote Pirates while struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. By 1983, after a lack of “hit” singles from Pirates and fearing the fickle, record-buying public might forget about Jones altogether, Warner Brothers put out a “mini-album,” Girl At Her Volcano, in 1983, which featured covers of pop standards as well as a few live tracks and leftover outtakes from earlier album sessions. And to be honest, the scrapped-together album was actually quite good, still holding up 30 years later: a testament to Jones’ remarkable gifts. Moving to France for the remainder of that year, Jones kicked her addictions and got back to writing new songs for the next album, 1984’s sublime and regrettably overlooked, The Magazine.

Co-written and co-produced with James Newton Howard, who had previously worked on Elton John’s late 1970’s/early 1980’s albums and who would go on to broad acclaim composing film scores (e.g., The Prince Of Tides, The Sixth Sense, The Hunger Games, etc.), the sweeping concept of this album, at times, sounds like a movie score: a movie score to a quirky, personal, joyful, and sometimes painful movie - kind of like how life is. This stands to reason, as Jones has said that each album she records is like the soundtrack of her life during the time she’s making it. And while the lyrics may be a bit opaque at times, and the whimsical narratives may lead to a few dead ends, the catchy songs (“Gravity,” “Juke Box Fury,” “It Must Be Love,” and the single, “The Real End,” which landed on the lower end of the Hot 100 charts) and the pretty musical interludes (“Prelude To Gravity,” and the mysterious, moody “Rorschachs”) hang together well, shifting moods throughout and keeping the project wholly engaging.

This great album, too, was lost on pop radio that summer and fall, losing ground to the synthesized blips and beeps of horrid earworms, like the squeaky, “Break My Stride,” or the song that was popular solely because Michael Jackson sang on it and anything he touched that year was going to sell a million copies, “Somebody’s Watching Me,” and possibly the worst pop song ever, particularly because it hailed from one of pop music’s former geniuses, “I Just Called To Say I Love You.” And while the album was certainly of a piece with film scores of the day, pop fans that year were far more interested in throwaway blockbuster movie themes, like the cheesy, fight-for-your-right-to-dance-and-have-teenage-sex call to arms, “Footloose,” and the just plain stupid, “Ghostbusters.” But all of this is to say that overlooking Rickie Lee Jones in 1984 was a mistake, plain and simple, as so many missed out on this sumptuous, imaginative, playful, and tender album.

And bonus points for The Magazine for cajoling me into a making a brave leap early in my career. As a new professional in the mid-1990s, I suddenly found myself in the middle of an organization that I no longer recognized. A number of us were disoriented and discouraged, reeling from new leadership. I no longer felt welcome in a workplace that suddenly seemed unfriendly and unfamiliar. To stay would have been a discouraging chain of professional disappointments, but the thought of leaving was paralyzing. While practically intolerable, it felt safer, somehow, to just hang out, albeit unhappily. But the last refrain of Jones’, “Runaround,” haunted and seduced me that year: “Take a deep breath and break the chain, uh-oh, ooh-oh; take a deep breath and break the chain, uh-oh, ooh-oh; take a deep breath and break the chain…” And so I did, and I’ve never looked back. And that, my gentle readers, is the life changing power of music.

"Seasons Of My Soul," by Rumer

Rumer is, by far, the best singer-songwriter making music today, but shamefully few seem to know it. But that’s all about to change, as Sir Elton John recently noted, “the world needs Rumer’s songs.” I couldn’t agree more. Rumer is a British singer-songwriter, and 2010’s Seasons Of My Soul is her stunning debut. Much has been noted about Rumer’s affinity for the oldies, and the observation resonates, as Rumer’s work is so much informed by the sun-faded, easy-listening music of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, including Burt Bacharach, Judee Sill, The Beach Boys, Dusty Springfield, John Sebastian, Hall & Oats, and Bread, to name a few. In fact, listening to Rumer’s debut is akin to listening to John Mayer’s 2012 album, Born And Raised (as well as his forthcoming, Paradise Valley, which reportedly follows the same early 1970’s rock muse): the music on these modern albums pays homage to the past, illustrating that there’s still so much more to be gleaned, so much more terrain to explore inside that golden era of popular music.

The album took about a year to record, which gave birth to the album title, as Rumer noticed that the songs she’d completed earlier in the recording process were “coming back” to her, emotionally, like with the seasons. Opening with the album’s first single, “Slow,” (#16, UK) is the perfect introduction to the album, as the song, with its smooth, slow-jam shuffle and silky, milk chocolate vocal is wholly representative of the record and of this gifted artist. The album’s second single, the consoling, “Aretha,” pays tribute to the Queen of Soul, from the ears and heart of a young girl at school, trying in vain to fit-in and finding solace from the words and music of the legendary artist: and who, at some point or another, hasn’t been completely buoyed and transported by Aretha Franklin’s songs?

There are two non-ballads on the album, the carbonated, Sesame Street-styled, “Am I Forgiven?” which skips along joyfully, reminiscent of the Archies or 1910 Fruitgum Co., which is a huge compliment, by the way. The other non-ballad is an equally engaging piece of ear candy, the delightful, “Saving Grace,” another slice of “bubblegum” pop confection, where Rumer exultantly sings, “Because you’re the one who makes me see; you are my saving grace; you make me want to become; become better…” Roll calling her musical heroes, the album also contains a dreamy cover of David Gates’ 1977 top-20 hit, the theme song from Neil Simon’s, “Goodbye Girl,” and the deluxe version of the album contains three additional cover tunes: Paul Simon’s lovely, “Long, Long Day,” The Beach Boy’s 1964 classic, “Warmth Of The Sun,” and fittingly, a cover of Bacharach & David’s 1965 classic, “Alfie.” Rumer went on to leverage this approach with significant panache on her sophomore effort, Boys Don’t Cry, a covers album featuring 1970’s songs, both popular and obscure, by acclaimed songwriters. The title ironically labels an album of emo (before it was even a thing) songs, all written by men.

The album ends with a tender trio of perfectly constructed ballads, starting with the pleadingly gentle waltz, “Take Me As I Am,” which leads into the album’s very best tune, the contemplative, serene “Thankful,” where the theme of the album is extracted, following the trajectory of love through the lens of the four seasons: from spring to summer, where she fondly recalls one particular afternoon, “…doing the dishes at the window and the radio’s playing ‘Superstar...’” to autumn and winter, sighing a tearful goodbye to a loved one, “In the Forest of Angels, that’s where we laid you down, and I can hear you whisper when the first frost falls on the ground: ‘you’re alive, just be thankful for this time.’” The ethereal, “On My Way Home,” closes this exceptional album with the prayerful couplet, which surrenders, “Oh, my God, oh, my God; I am yours…” Magnificent. And while all but two of the songs barely rise above a whisper, Seasons Of My Soul powerfully unpacks the beauty, joy, sadness, and compassion contained in the human heart. Yep, the world needs Rumer’s songs.

“Fandango,” by Pat Metheny, Alan Silvestri, and various artists

A first for this blog, and perhaps a first for any album review: I’m writing about an album that, technically, doesn’t exist. Also a first for this blog, Fandango is not a formal album by one particular artist, which is an underlying theme for this blog, but a compilation of many musicians. That said, it’s one of the best albums that never was from one of the most underrated films of the last few decades, so I’m including it, here. Fandango is a 1985 film, starring Kevin Costner in one of his first leading roles and directed by Kevin Reynolds, who would go on to work with Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and the ill-fated, Waterworld (1995). But in 1981, Reynolds was a budding, student filmmaker, whose graduate student film, Proof, about the antics of his fraternity at Baylor University, caught the attention of one, Stephen Spielberg, who was impressed enough to offer financial backing for a feature-length film. Reynold’s graduate student short film became Fandango, one in a line of hundreds of archetypal, road trip/coming-of-age films. This one is set in the U.S. Vietnam era, 1971, and it follows the “farewell fandango” of “The Groovers,” a group of college friends, two of whom had just received notice that their draft deferral had expired, requiring them to report for military duty in the Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia conflicts.

While the movie played all of two weeks in a limited number of theaters across the country, cable television and late-night syndication have given the film an extended shelf life, and it has garnered a dedicated cult following in the almost 30 years that have passed since its release. And deservedly so. It’s a cool movie. Regarding the rumored release of an official soundtrack, some “super fans” of the film report owning a uber-obscure cassette soundtrack of the film and claim the album had limited release in conjunction with the movie decades ago, but most seem to concur that the soundtrack for Fandango was never released as an actual album. And that’s a pity, since the music used in the film perfectly captures the sadness, angst, frustration, fear, and excitement of the five central characters, each facing vastly different, post-college fates.

The film includes classic rock tracks of the era by Cream, Elton John, Carole King, Classics IV, Blind Faith, and Steppenwolf, as well as perfectly fitting mood pieces by the legendary Los Lobos and the obscure, Milton Brown and the Brownies. These songs are interspersed with Alan Silvestri’s (Forrest Gump, Back To The Future, Cast Away, The Avengers, etc.) remarkably descriptive film score and three Pat Metheny contributions: the gentle piano ballad, “September Fifteenth,” an affectionate tribute to Bill Evans, who died during the song’s recording, “It’s For You,” which beautifully framed the wedding dance scene with Costner and Suzy Amis, which is the emotional centerpiece of the movie, and the heartbreaking, “Farmer’s Trust, (5:50 mark)” which sets the mood for the tender dénouement of the film. Pretty. Poignant. Perfect. Silvestri’s imaginative score is also, sadly, not widely available, save for a few Fandango songs being included on the end of the now-out-of-print soundtrack for the even more obscure, 1994 film, Blown Away.

That factoid and much of the other information about this exceptional, non-existent album was gleaned from an outstanding Fandango film fan site, which also suggests a soundtrack song list, but I’ve compiled my own, wonky iteration, here:

1. Cream, “Badge”
2. Elton John, “Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting”
3. Los Lobos, “Ay Te Dejo En San Antonio”
4. Carole King, “It's Too Late”
5. Classics IV, “Spooky”
6. Alan Silvestri, “Smooth Talk”
7. Alan Silvestri, “The Other Side Of Madness”
8. Alan Silvestri, “Acknowledgement”
9. Steppenwolf, “Born To Be Wild”
10. Milton Brown And The Brownies, “Taking Off”
11. Pat Metheny And Lyle Mays, “September Fifteenth”
12. Pat Metheny And Lyle Mays, “It's For You”
13. Pat Metheny, “Farmer's Trust”
14. Blind Faith, “Can't Find My Way Home”

I think what strikes me most about the songs Reynolds used for Fandango is the way, when taken together, they perfectly recreate the zeitgeist of that particular point in time for many White people in the United States: the end of the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s. The music, when listened to as a piece, feels like that tumultuous era and conjures the thoughts and feelings connected to that moment of significant, political unrest and social upheaval, that moment of heartbreaking war and fear, that moment of great expectations and personal freedom. And Reynold’s classic movie does the same; it’s worth seeking out. Afterwards, you’ll need the above song listing (and a little internet ingenuity) to complete your own groovy soundtrack. 

“Here’s to us and to what we were.” 
“And what we’ll be...”