Late-Night Jukebox/Movie Soundtrack

[Ringo]

I'm looking for suggestions and specific examples of songs that make you feel as if you're the protagonist in a weird film. Imagine that you're driving through the Arizona desert, maybe running from (or to) someone. It's late and you're tired and dusty. Then you happen upon a bar in the middle fo nowhere. You pull over on the sirt road. You grind out your cigarette, push open the door and walk in. The atmosphere feels weird, charged...loaded almost. What song is playing on the jukebox?

Or maybe you visit a Transdimensional Gas Station. Things feel...off, twilight zone time. What song is playing on the old radio?

I don't mean songs that are intended to be be creepy or scary (anything Halloween, instrumental, Goth, metal or overtly new age is not what I mean. I don't want artists/band members shouting, screaming or wearing eye liner). The music should be weird by accident, maybe menacing, eerie or just enough to make you feel like somthing is about to happen. Here are some examples of what I mean:

This makes me want to sit in an empty bar. I swig a beer and smoke cigarettes. The door opens and a stranger walks in. He sits beside me and asks "Do you know why I'm here?"

Or how about a timeslip, a late night flashback or a shot of somone falling endlessly through the air?

Or this classic from Mulholland Drive. It's so beautiful but uncomfortable because it's so intense. I see our protagonist exploring a derelict building, ballroom or nightclub when this song suddenly starts playing...

So, tell me where are you and what song is playing.

 

[Ringo]

I expected some corkers but maybe not...

 

[James_H]

You're conjuring a Lynch/Tarantino vibe for me so here you go:

 

[Yithian]

Or all night long, baby.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I'm not absolutely certain what you're seeking, but I'm sensing it involves 'atmospheric' yet 'askew; 'not quite normal'; 'suggestive of surrealism'.

If I were sitting and brooding on a bar stool in the middle of nowhere, at some crossroads within my own noir film, the jukebox might well be playing:

- 'I Put a Spell on You' (or one of the oddly laid back tracks by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, such as 'Orange Colored Sky')

- 'Wicked Game' (Chris Isaak) I can't hear this song without imagining a forlorn cinematic scene.

- 'What's Happening?!?!' (Byrds; Fifth Dimension album).

- 'Something Following Me' (Procol Harum).

- Any of R. L. Burnside's blues songs remixed with modern glosses on the 1998 album Come On In.

If you want to affect an audience's sense of normalcy / reality, nothing works better than a familiar song done in a wildly different way (style; tempo; etc.). The point at which the listener realizes what the song is, and how odd its treatment has made it, becomes the point at which you've shoved them out onto cognitive 'black ice'.

Two bands specializing in such cross-genre rehashing come to mind:

- Big Daddy (contemporary hits, each done in the style of a particular 50's / 60's-era performer). They were the only band with enough balls to cover the entire Sgt. Peppers album, which was their sole treatment of songs issued prior to their 'real time' present (1980's, mainly).

- Dread Zeppelin (Zep songs done as reggae tunes).

I would have also recommended some instrumental music, but you explicitly ruled that out.

 

[Yithian]

Try this:

 

[skinny]

you're driving through the Arizona desert, maybe running from (or to) someone. It's late and you're tired and dusty. Then you happen upon a bar in the middle fo nowhere. You pull over on the sirt road. You grind out your cigarette, push open the door and walk in. The atmosphere feels weird, charged...loaded almost. What song is playing on the jukebox?

5:03

 

[Ringo]

That version of Miserlou is amazing. I love it.

I'm not absolutely certain what you're seeking, but I'm sensing it involves 'atmospheric' yet 'askew; 'not quite normal'; 'suggestive of surrealism'.

If I were sitting and brooding on a bar stool in the middle of nowhere, at some crossroads within my own noir film, the jukebox might well be playing:

- 'I Put a Spell on You' (or one of the oddly laid back tracks by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, such as 'Orange Colored Sky')

- 'Wicked Game' (Chris Isaak) I can't hear this song without imagining a forlorn cinematic scene.

- 'What's Happening?!?!' (Byrds; Fifth Dimension album).

- 'Something Following Me' (Procol Harum).

- Any of R. L. Burnside's blues songs remixed with modern glosses on the 1998 album Come On In.

Exactly, EnolaGaia. Askew is a perfect word. And Wicked Game by Chris Isaak almost made it into my first post. I suppose I mean atmospheric movie soundtrack material which hints at the askew, the Lynch/Cronenberg/Tarantino vibe of cool, weird and the suggestion of the sleazy.

Edwyn Collins "A Girl Like you" is a little too mainstream but the sleazy guitar solo could easily be a strip bar scene in a Dusk till Dawn remake or as the girl in cowboy boots locks you with her gaze and moves across the room towards you.

 

[David Plankton]

This thread needs some Tom Waits.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Everyone probably has their own night-time soundtrack - and they’ll all be a bit different, and possibly non-transferable.

Ever since the days of my old mini-disc player (kids - ask your mum and dad) I've had a night-time playlist, generally dedicated to noctambulous use in urban situations. I love walking cities at night - right there somewhere near the top of the list of my favourite experiences.

Too many tracks on that list for here - so just a few of the core:

The Sabres, Chapel Street Market 9 am suits the mood too. And, Tow Truck - for when I'm on a mission

....and, well, virtually everything else by Burial.

More for those missions...

And, I think it would be around 2009 – during a few days when London really did get some proper winter weather - I got stranded down there on a job. About 02.00 one morning I surfaced from my Liverpool Street kip to wander the Square Mile and its surroundings. The sight of 30 St Mary Axe shrouded in thick flurries of snow - and the City, totally still and entirely empty – is an experience that will always stay with me. It was eerie, and awesome (in the real sense of that word), and beautiful. This track seemed very appropriate – and will always remind me of the experience:

 

[Yithian]

Obital:-

University in the 90s. I got my old Etonian into Black Sabbath, Ozric Tentacles, Gong dEUS and a ton of post-rock and he retuned the favour with Obital, the Orb and lots of trippy beats.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

This may be straying slightly from the OP, but it got me thinking about the most striking or evocative use of music in a movie. Not necessarily the best theme, but where inspired use of music makes a scene really stand out and renders the whole movie more memorable. A few examples that spring to mind are:

The banjo sequence from Deliverance.

Sumer is icumen in at the end of The Wicker Man.

The Hitler youth singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me in Cabaret.

The ear-cutting Stuck in the Middle With You in Reservoir Dogs.

The incongruity of the Eton Boat song in Society.

Lemmy as a cab driver putting in a cassette of Ace of Spades in Hardware.