Musician Will Oldham on movie music - do pre-existing pop songs belong in films?

Will Oldham (AKA Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Palace, and about a dozen other pseudonyms) is far and away one of my favorite musicians working today. Beyond his extremely prolific recording career, Oldham is a really talented actor - appearing in the classic Matewan, and more recently Junebug, The Guatemalan Handshake, and the superb Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy.


It's no secret that I absolutely love this guy. I've written roles in screenplays with him in mind - and listened to many, many hours of his music while I've been writing.

Oldham recently did a rare interview with The Onion AV Club where he talks about his creative process, his acting career, and the current state of the music industry. The whole interview is fascinating if you're a fan of his, but his thoughts on film music were what really got me thinking:

AVC: You mentioned talking to Richard Linklater and Caveh Zahedi about your ideas on movie music. Can you summarize those ideas?

WO: Well, for a while, it seemed like you were always seeing movies where all the music was determined by the music supervisors and their special relationships with certain record labels. And I just felt like, “Wow, I’ll bet they spent months or years writing this screenplay, and I’ll bet they spent months shooting this, and I’ll bet they spent months editing this, and now they’re spending no time at all picking these completely inappropriate songs with lyrics to put under a scene that has dialogue.” How does that even work? How can you have a song with someone singing lyrics under spoken dialogue and consider that mood-music, or supportive of the storyline? As somebody who likes music, when that happens, I tend to listen to the lyrics, which have nothing to do with the movie. And then I’m lost in the storyline. Not only is that a crime, but it’s a crime not to give people who are good at making music for movies the work. It’s like saying, “We don’t need you, even though you’re so much better at it than I am as a music supervisor.” Like the cancer that is that Darjeeling guy… what’s his name?

AVC: Wes Anderson?

WO: Yeah. His completely cancerous approach to using music is basically, “Here’s my iPod on shuffle, and here’s my movie.” The two are just thrown together. People are constantly contacting me saying, “I’ve been editing my movie, and I’ve been using your song in the editing process. What would it take to license the song?” And for me it’s like, “Regardless of what you’ve been doing, my song doesn’t belong in your movie.” That’s where the conversation should end. Music should be made for movies, you know?

This bit of the interview really made me stop in my tracks. Anyone who knows me or my writing is aware of how important a part music plays, both there and in most everything I do.

I've (mostly) gotten out of the habit of writing songs into my screenplays, but I'm still setting my scenes to music in my head as I write, creating an imaginary soundtrack. Music can inspire certain feelings and emotions in me much quicker and more efficiently than any other medium. If thinking of a certain song can help me get into a desired mindset, I see no problem with using that as my crutch.

But, once you get past the screenplay phase and into the editing process - does using existing songs distract from the film itself?

I can see myself on both sides of the fence with this one. On one hand, I hate, hate, hate it when popular songs are slapped into a movie haphazardly, without any real rhyme or reason other than to create a hip soundtrack. (I'm looking at you, Juno and Nick and Norah.) I find myself annoyed by the music, and these negative feelings will bleed out onto the films other qualities, or lack thereof.

But on the other hand, there are plenty of examples of movies that have used an existing song to elevate a scene into something sublime - I'll use Apocalypse Now's use of The Doors' "The End" as an example for this, or the unsettling acapella version of Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet.

Do pre-existing pop songs have any business appearing in movies? When is it okay/not okay?

Tuesday sick-blogging: Rock 'n Roll Reading

I'm home sick today, laying in bed with my laptop at my side. Not fun.

Last week, I asked if, while writing, you created a playlist or soundtrack to not only accompany you while writing, but to serve as an official anthem for the work. Not everyone does it, I'm sure. I find it to be helpful and an entertaining facet of the writing process. Or maybe it's just a distraction. No matter.



Also mentioned last week was music/book blog Largehearted Boy's Book Notes series of interviews, which allows authors to talk about the music that inspired them while writing their most recently released book/novel/whatever.

Today, as I drowsily scrolled through my blogs, I discovered that indie siren Juliana Hatfield was being spotlighted, talking about her new autobiography/memoir When I Grow Up.

Here's a sampling:

"Don't" by Dinosaur Jr.

The Blake Babies (my first band) were recording during the overnight shift at Fort Apache studios in Cambridge, MA, and Dinosaur Jr. were making their album "Bug" in the daytime. I arrived early one evening and happened to catch Lou Barlow, bassist and occasional song-contributor of Dinosaur, doing a vocal take of this song in which he scream-sings "WHY DON'T YOU LIKE ME???!!!" repeatedly. It hurt my throat just to listen; Lou was throwing his whole body and soul into it. He seemed to be trying to destroy something with his voice, or to exorcise some evil demon.

It was maybe the most authentically tortured and anguished vocal performance I'd ever had the pleasure (or horror) to witness. Lou really meant it.

He came out of the recording booth and went into the bathroom and spat up blood. That's how hard he had sung. Scary, but righteous, I thought. Maybe rock and roll should hurt. If it doesn't, maybe you're not doing it right.

Now, reading this reminded me of another genre of books I read voraciously (well, when I'm not 10 books into a detective series, that is): Music history or musical bios. And, oddly enough, I find that the best autobiographies in the rock genre are often written not by the big name stars, but lesser-known "almost stars." Which is why I have high hopes for Hatfield's book. I was never much of a fan of her music, but from what little I've read (Rolling Stone had an excerpt), I think it'll be an entertaining and memorable read.



Another example that falls into the category of lesser-known music personality with a good book is Dean Wareham, formerly of bands Luna and Galaxie 500. Wareham's tales -- aptly titled Black Postcards -- of touring, band tension and drug abuse are engaging and brutally honest, making for a great peek into the industry a lot of us only see through the filter of television, radio or iTunes.



I guess the point of this note is to remind you all -- and myself, to a degree -- that while it's great to read stuff in the genre you are writing in, and want to work in, it's doubly helpful to branch out and find other kinds of writing you enjoy. It'll only help your writing get better, and ideally, more diverse.

What are some of the genres you enjoy reading?

Do you create a soundtrack for your screenplay/novel?

On Monday, I asked what kind of music you listened to while writing or to get into the writing mindset. Today, I stumble across this post, from music/book blog Largehearted Boy, in which authors discuss music or a specific playlist and how the songs are relevant to their recently published book or short story. It's an interesting series of interviews done with a variety of writers. Definitely worth checking out.

It also begs the question: Do you ever find it helpful to put together a playlist or "soundtrack" for your project? I've had an iTunes playlist going for SILENT CITY, but have yet to really pare it down enough where I'm comfortable even calling it a soundtrack. It's got a lot of the stuff I mentioned in my previous post, because that's what I like to listen to while writing, period. But, it also has some more story-specific songs that tie into or reflect the overall plot of the book. Lots of Cuban music, some grittier rock numbers (Velvet Underground, Steve Earle, The Replacements), and, in many ways, these tracks serve as the soundtrack for the book and appear in the text itself.

For example, when Pete is talking about listening to the 'Mats at work -- that's what was playing while I was writing. It's kind of fun. At least for me.

Trunk Music

Over at Rolling Stone, the online version of the mag lists their favorite 'crime' songs.

It's a painfully obvious list, and it seems most are on there because they have some iteration of the word 'crime' in the title. Some blatant omissions: Cash's "I Got Stripes," The Stones' "Heartbreaker (Doo Doo Doo Doo)," Ice-T's "Cop Killer" and a few others that aren't immediately popping into my head (I'd have to scroll through the Stones, Clash and Cash libraries to find better examples, and that's not happening now). Click on the link to see the full list.

More importantly, this post got me to thinking about what music is most conducive to writing. While I listen to a lot of different genres of music (and find myself listening to music most of the time), it's a little bit trickier when I need to "split my brain" and focus on more than just the music, like when I'm reading or writing. Usually for reading on the train, I usually just have the music at a lower volume, allowing me to focus on the words on the page. Writing is a bit different and I find that instrumentals work best. Jazz, particularly Mingus and Charlie Parker really get my hands typing, especially with SILENT CITY.

What do you listen to while writing?

Three points for those that get the crime fiction reference in the post headline.

Screenplay hard drive clutter

Last week I talked about the document I keep of cut passages from each of my screenplays and the nega-writing process. While I'm on the topic of peripheral files for a screenplay, I may as well touch on the other things that I accumulate during the writing of a first draft.

I keep a folder on my desktop that share their names with different writing projects I'm working on. In each of these folders I collect various pieces of media that are either inspired parts of the screenplay, are referenced by the characters, or are in some other way related. My current alpha project (a thriller that the fellow Leaguers are all familiar with) is no different, and its folder contains the following:

1) Locale photographs. Several are taken by myself, of locations I have in mind to use as reference when describing a character's surroundings. (For example, several scenes take place in a diner that I've modeled after one I used to eat at often in Ohio.)

2) Miscellaneous images. I have various jpegs that I stumbled over during the formative early months of my screenplay's life; a poster that hangs on a character's bedroom wall, and photos of strangers found on the internet who resemble the appearance I visualize for certain characters in my head. (Is that creepy? Maybe.)

3) MP3 files. Two songs are referenced in the screenplay, and there were a couple songs that helped me get into the right frame of mind for certain scenes. I keep these nearby in case I ever need to fall back into that mood.

Part of me is tempted to include this folder on the CD along with the PDF file when I hand the draft to a friend to get their take on it, but I'm afraid that offering that type of guidance would distract them from giving me an unbiased reading and an unhindered feedback session.