Art by Michael Zhang.
This episode was written & produced by Casey Emmerling.
When a filmmaker pairs a scene with the perfect song, the results can become iconic. But when and how did movies start using popular music this way? In this episode, Dallas, Casey and Grace trace the history of “needle drops,” from a forgotten Broadway song that became an unlikely hit, to the rock ‘n’ roll record that transformed movie soundtracks, to the happy accidents behind some of the most famous scenes of the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Along the way, they reveal how movies and popular music became permanently intertwined.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Gerhard Feng - Oh Please
Niklas Gabrielsson with Martin Landstrom & His Orchestra - Myself and I
Nikolas Jones - Flying the Flag
Wesley Slover - Not Quite Summer
OTE - Schizophrenia
Tigerblood Jewel - Bring My Friends
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Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced by Defacto Sound.
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If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.
View Transcript ▶︎
[20k sonic logo]
[music in: Gerhard Feng - Oh Please]
Grace: Hello. Hello, hello.
Dallas: Hello hello, hello.
Casey: Hello, hello, hello.
Grace: Hi!
Recently, our Supervising Producer, Casey, set up a recording with me and Defacto Sound's producer, Grace.
Casey: All right, so shall we get into it?
Dallas: Let's get into it.
Grace: Let’s do it.
[music fades under]
Casey: So today we are going on a journey through the world of needle drops, which is the term for when a movie or TV show or even a commercial uses a popular song rather than original score music or production music, AKA library music.
[Goodellas in]
Casey: So you might remember the montage in Goodfellas. It's after the big heist when Robert De Niro’s character is taking out all of his accomplices, and it's set to "Layla" by Derek and the Dominos. So that is a needle drop.
[Goodellas up, then under]
Goodfellas Clip: Jimmy was cutting every link between himself and the robbery. But it had nothing to do with me.
Casey: Or in Fight Club, at the end, when the financial buildings start exploding and “Where Is My Mind” by The Pixies starts playing, that is also a needle drop.
Dallas: Ooh, I love it.
[Fight Club up, then under]
Fight Club Clip: Marla, look at me. I’m really okay. Trust me. Everything’s gonna be fine.
Casey: So a needle drop is about crafting the perfect pairing of a song and a scene, and making that pairing successful involves a lot of craft and artistry, but also just a lot of practical work and negotiating, and that's what we're gonna dive into today.
Dallas: All right.
Grace: Woohoo!
Casey: But before we get to the history, I want to define a couple of terms, which are “diegetic” and “non-diegetic” music. Are either of you familiar with those terms?
Dallas: Yeah, we need better terms for this. It's also sound design. This is something where people say "diegetic" and "non-diegetic," and it's just too academic of a term. Grace, and you're our resident linguist, can we make a better term than “diegetic” and “non-diegetic”?
Grace: I would love to, because I have to explain this to clients all the time. It's a word I learned once I started working here. And then, yeah, whenever I try to explain it, it's like, “There's gotta be a better word.” It's like, I don't know, "in-world" something… I don't know.
Casey: I like "in-world."
Dallas: “Reality sounds” versus “non-reality sounds”?
Grace: Yeah, something like that.
Casey: Do one of you wanna explain what it does mean?
Dallas: I did not do it? Oh, gosh. Okay. “Diegetic” is when a thing lives in the universe that you're actually in.
Grace: Yeah.
Dallas: So if I turned on a radio behind me next to my microphone, that's diegetic 'cause it's in my world. And “non-diegetic” means it lives in the mind and not in the world of the character.
[sound design in]
Dallas: So if we're talking about sound effects, if I'm walking and my footsteps are diegetic because it's part of the world, or if I'm walking in New York City, the horn honks of the taxis and the cars are diegetic, but the whoosh of the camera pan is non-diegetic because that is something that lives outside of the real world inside the story.
[sound design out]
Casey: Totally. And that's a good way to expand it into sound design. And yeah, in terms of music, non-diegetic music is basically score music. So, you know, it helps set the tone of the scene, but the characters in the scene aren't hearing that music. And then diegetic music is something that the characters can hear. So maybe they're listening to the radio or singing a song.
Casey: A good example might be in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when he's dancing in the parade to “Twist and Shout.”
[clip: Ferris Bueller's Day Off]
Grace: Ugh, such a classic.
Casey: So we'll be talking about both diegetic and non-diegetic music today because they both involve many of the same kinds of creative decisions and logistical challenges.
Casey: But before we dive in, do you have any overall thoughts on needle drops? Like, when a popular song pops up in a movie, do you tend to react a certain way, or is it totally dependent on the movie and the song?
Grace: Hmm.
Dallas: I generally dislike lyrical music in movies. To me, it's like fourth wall breaky in a weird way, especially if it's non-diegetic lyric. Because it's kind of not only sonically telling me how to feel, which is the role of music, but it's also literally saying words that I have to focus on thematically. And I don't know, I've just never really liked lyric music in movies.
Grace: Hmm.
Casey: Hot take.
Dallas: Hot take.
Grace: That's so interesting. I feel differently. Like, I love when I hear, like, a popular track in a movie, I think because it activates my like, “brain movie”. So, like, I don't have an internal monologue, I just, like, watch a silent movie all day. And like, the music, like an iconic track, will, like, generate that visual for me, and it's like a really intense, like, one-to-one relationship.
Grace: But that's, like, so interesting, Dallas, that you feel like that takes you out of it. Like, it's two polar opposite reactions to like the same artistic choice, which is so cool.
[music in: Niklas Gabrielsson with Martin Landstrom & His Orchestra - Myself and I]
Casey: So the history of needle drops goes back a lot farther than I ever realized before I started researching this. So films first got sound in the late 1920s, and by the early '30s, pretty much every movie had music in it. And for the most part, movies used original score music rather than preexisting songs, but there were some exceptions.
[music fades under]
Casey: For instance, tell me if you recognize this scene from a classic 1942 movie.
[clip: Casablanca]
Dallas: Casablanca?
Casablanca Clip: Sing it, Sam.
Casey: You got it!
Grace: Wow, that was so quick!
Dallas: I don’t remember the specific scene, though.
Casey: So that is the scene in Casablanca when Ilsa asks Sam, the piano player, to play a song that reminds her of Rick. It's shortly before she and Rick see each other again for the first time in a long time. And we learn it was their song back in Paris. So she's asking the piano player to play her and Rick's song to reminisce about old times.
Dallas: Aww.
Casablanca Clip: Play it once, Sam. For old time’s sake?
Casey: The song is called “As Time Goes By,” and it's the central love theme of Casablanca. Composer Max Steiner quotes the melody multiple times throughout the score.
[clip: Max Steiner - As Time Goes By]
Dallas: Beautiful.
Grace: Wow!
Casey: You might also recognize that melody as the Warner Brothers logo, which is an homage to Casablanca.
[clip: Warner Brothers production logo]
Dallas: That’s right! Yeah.
Grace: Okay, what?
Dallas: [Singing]
Grace: Oh my God, this is wild.
Casey: Yeah, I didn't know that connection.
Dallas: Yeah I didn’t…
Grace: No kidding. What!? That's crazy!
Dallas: The dots just connected
Grace: Wow.
Casey: But that song, “As Time Goes By,” it actually comes from a 1931 Broadway musical called Everybody's Welcome. So that's 11 years before Casablanca came out. Here are two different recordings from back then. Here's one by Rudy Vallée.
[clip: Rudy Vallée - As Time Goes By]
Casey: And a second by Jacques Renard.
[clip: Jacques Renard - As Time Goes By]
Casey: Now in 1931, those songs were just moderately successful. But 11 years later when the song appeared in Casablanca, audiences rushed out to buy it. And at the time, the American Federation of Musicians union was in the middle of a strike, so the artist who actually sings it in Casablanca, Dooley Wilson, couldn't put out a new version.
Casey: So instead, the record labels that had those 11-year-old records, you know, sitting in the archives re-released them, and then they became hits because of the movie.
Dallas: I love it.
Grace: That is so cool. I love the song “As Time Goes By,” had no idea it was in Casablanca. I think I knew it from, my parents had this old crooners CD with, like, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald…
Casey: Oh, nice.
Grace: Yeah, I think Frank Sinatra's version of that was on that CD. I had no idea that was its origin.
[clip: Frank Sinatra - As Time Goes By]
Casey: But in the 1950s, rock ‘n’ roll started taking off, and some filmmakers got on the bandwagon. The first big example was this one. I'm sure you won't know the movie, but I'm guessing you will recognize the song, so just shout it out as soon as the name comes to you.
Grace: Okay.
[clip: Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock Around the Clock]
Dallas: Buh dum. Buh dum.
Grace: Oh, is it like Rock Around the Clock–Rock Around the Cr–Rock Around the Clock?
Casey: You got it! There it is.
Dallas: I should also take a moment here to say that I'm at a severe disadvantage in this particular contest because of what… how Grace thinks and the way that I think. I have something, and I think that there's a term for this, but, “lyric blindness.”
Dallas: And it's one of those things like when I say it–
Grace: Interesting.
Dallas: out loud, other people go, "Whoa, I have that too!" But other people listen to words very deeply.
Grace: Yes. That would be me.
Dallas: But when I hear music, I hear it as a one cohesive musical soundy thing, which makes a lot of sense with being a sound designer and all. So I, even if the lyrics are in the title, I'm gonna have a harder time putting it together, because I just fundamentally hear lyrical music as all music, and not comprehending the actual words.
Dallas: My wife, on the other hand, is immediately on lyrics. She knows it deeply the first listen. What about you, Grace, as a linguist?
Grace: Yeah. You know, that's so interesting. I feel like I grew up in a very, like, music-loving household, so I know a lot of the tracks, like, you know, classic tracks just from listening to the songs, over and over again. But I do think I pick up the lyrics, like, very quickly and I sing along to songs all the time. Whether or not the lyrics are correct is another thing entirely, but...
Casey: Yeah. I'm probably somewhere in between where like often it takes me like a couple listens to really start latching onto the lyrics.
Casey: Umm, so yeah, so that was "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets.
Grace: Oh yeah.
Casey: It's an iconic song, but it was not a hit when it first came out in 1954. It was actually the B side to a song called "13 Women and Only One Man in Town."
[clip: Bill Haley & His Comets - Thirteen Women and Only One Man In Town]
Dallas: Wow.
Grace: Sorry, that's so funny.
Dallas: What year was this?
Casey: That was 1954.
Grace: I was gonna say, this has to be '50s.
Casey: Uh, so like most B sides, "Rock Around the Clock" didn't get much attention at first.
Grace: Interesting.
Casey: But a year later, the song was used in the opening credits of a movie called Blackboard Jungle, which is about a high school teacher facing off against a bunch of juvenile delinquents, almost like a scare piece about the rise of rebellious greasers.
Grace: Oh my god.
Dallas: Those greasers, ugh.
[clip: Blackboard Jungle trailer]
Trailer: You are now listening to “Rock Around the Clock.” This is the theme music from MGM’s sensational new picture, Blackboard Jungle. Many people said the story could not, must not, dared not be shown. It is fiction, but fiction torn from big city modern savagery.
Grace: I love that.
Casey: So after the film came out, the record company re-released “Rock Around the Clock” as the A side of a single, and then it became a smash hit. It was number one on the charts in the US and the UK, and it's now considered one of the foundational songs of rock and roll.
Casey: The film Blackboard Jungle was also pretty successful. It had a budget of just over a million dollars and earned over eight million. Frank Zappa later wrote an article in Life Magazine about the impact of seeing that film when he was young, and here's what he wrote.
[typewriter in]
Frank Zappa article: I remember going to see Blackboard Jungle. When the titles flashed up there on the screen, Bill Haley & His Comets started blurching, "One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock." I remember being inspired with awe. Bill Haley was playing the teenage national anthem, and it was so loud I was jumping up and down. Blackboard Jungle represented a strange sort of endorsement of the teenage cause. They have made a movie about us; therefore, we exist.
Casey: So Blackboard Jungle showed that using modern popular music could give your film credibility with young people, which could increase both ticket sales and record sales.
Casey: So after that, a few other filmmakers started doing some similar things. Like in 1959, there was a movie called Go Johnny Go, which should immediately give away the song from the year before that was used in the film.
Dallas: Go Johnny, go, go go.
Grace: Yeah, yup!
Casey: Mm-hmm.
[clip: Chuck Berry - Johnny B Goode]
Casey: Yep, so that's “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry. Uh, the movie's about a radio DJ searching for the next rock star. So it included a bunch of performances from people like Chuck Berry and Ritchie Valens and other early rock and rollers playing a lot of their hit songs. So lots of diegetic or “in-world” music as we're call–I like maybe in-world and out-world? I don't know.
Grace: Yeah. “In-world” feels like what you would say in, like, a video game too, you know? You're kinda, like, immersed.
Casey: People get that concept.
Grace: Totally.
Casey: But starting in the late '50s, there was one particular star who was basically making movies to sell his records and making records to sell tickets to his movies. Directors who cast this person were contractually obligated to have him perform multiple songs in their films, regardless of whether it made sense for the script.
Dallas: It was Elvis.
Casey: You got it. Ding, ding, ding. [sfx: ding ding ding]
Casey: So I'll play you a song from a movie that has the same title as the song. So go ahead and shout it out once you recognize it
[clip: Elvis Presley - Viva Las Vegas]
Dallas: Ooh, Viva Las Vegas.
Casey: Yep. There you go
Grace: Oh, yes. Yep, yep.
Dallas: I had an unfair advantage here. I am from Memphis, Tennessee.
Casey: Mmm. So you grew up with The King.
Dallas: I grew up…
Grace: Wait, I didn't know that.
Dallas: Yep.
Grace: That's so cool.
[clip: Elvis Presley - Viva Las Vegas]
Dallas: I mean, Elvis is–I mean, that music's incredible though too/
Casey: Oh yeah, the music is great.
Grace: Yeah, timeless
Casey: But whether Elvis was playing a soldier, or a bull rider, or a race car driver, his character always happened to be a musician. So there'd be lots of scenes of him performing, and then there would be a soundtrack album featuring all of those songs. Rinse and repeat.
[clip: Harum Scarum trailer]
Trailer: Go east, young man. Elvis takes his own advice, and plunges in the wildest, wackiest adventures of his entire career. Risking his neck for dames he never saw before, and seconds later, he’s singing them love songs.
Casey: And there's another huge artist who did something similar, but arguably they were a little more tasteful about it. So in the UK, in July of 1964, a film, an album, and a single all with the same name were released, and they all became hits. Can you guess what that is?
Dallas: Sergeant Pepper's.
Casey: Good, very good direction. Just slightly before that.
Grace: Yeah, I was thinking The Beatles.
Dallas: Oh, it's like Help?
Grace: Help?
Casey: Well, as soon as I start playing it, it should become obvious.
Grace: Okay, okay.
[clip: The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night]
Dallas: Hard Day’s Night.
Grace: Hard Day’s Night.
Casey: You got it. Nice.
Grace: Isn’t it incredible that one guitar, like one note…
Dallas: That's iconic.
Grace: That's so cool.
Casey: Yep. So The Beatles with "A Hard Day's Night," the title track from the album and film. And the difference between them and Elvis's needle drops was that The Beatles were typically playing themselves in their film, and "A Hard Day's Night" was kinda–kinda like a faux documentary. So putting their performances in the movie feels a little more natural than a fictional character who's just always breaking out into song like Elvis is.
Grace: Yeah.
Casey: But films that star a famous musician are definitely the exception. And in 1967, there was a classic movie with several needle drops from one particular artist, who does not appear in the movie, they’re just on the soundtrack. And that soundtrack became a number one hit. Do you have any idea what movie I’m talking about?
Dallas: No, n-no idea over here.
Grace: Yeah.
Casey: So this is the song that plays during the opening credits. Let me know as soon as you recognize the song and/or the film.
[clip: Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence]
Dallas: I mean I know the song, um…
Grace: Yeah.
Dallas: But that was the beginning of a movie?
Grace: That's “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel.
Casey: Yep. Your hint for the movie is, "Recently collegiate."
Grace: Recently collegiate?
Dallas: I don't think I saw this movie.
Casey: It’s probably an overly wordy hint. But if someone was recently collegiate but is no longer, then you could call them a…
Dallas: The Graduate?
Grace: Oh my gosh, The Graduate. It's The Graduate. It's The Graduate. Oh my God, I can't believe… I should have known that.
Dallas: Okay, this was purely context clues here. If you've actually seen it, Grace, you get the point.
Grace: It’s um, Dustin Hoffman, like very young, right?
Casey: Exactly. So the scene with that song is basically Dustin Hoffman standing on a moving walkway as he leaves an airport.
Grace: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Casey: So during production, director Mike Nichols received a Simon and Garfunkel record as a gift and fell in love with the music. He decided it would be a perfect fit for his movie, and he commissioned Simon and Garfunkel to write some original music for it. And Paul Simon did write a couple of songs for the film, but Nichols rejected them.
Casey: And in the temp edit, they used a few earlier Simon and Garfunkel songs, including "The Sound of Silence," with the intention of swapping them out with the new ones. But in the end, they decided those songs worked as-is, and so they kept them.
Grace: Cool.
Casey: But they still needed a song for the scene when Dustin Hoffman is driving up the coast to stop the wedding of the girl that he's in love with. And at the time, Paul Simon was working on a song called "Mrs. Roosevelt," which was an ode to Eleanor Roosevelt.
Grace: Oh!
Casey: And if you've seen The Graduate, you know that the mom character is Mrs. Robinson.
Dallas: Right.
Casey: So Paul Simon changed the lyrics from Mrs. Roosevelt to Mrs. Robinson, and that's the one original song that they recorded for the movie.
Grace: No way.
[clip: Simon & Garfunkel - Mrs. Robinson]
Grace: Oh, that's so cool.
Casey: But The Graduate's music was built around a single artist, and two years later, we got one of the first hit soundtracks that included a variety of popular bands. So that's 1969. Can you guess what the film was?
Dallas: Oof, no idea.
Grace: I don't know.
Casey: So the opening credits of this film show two cool dudes driving down a desert highway on motorcycles while this song plays…
[clip: Steppenwolf - Born to Be Wild]
Dallas: They are clearly cool dudes, but it is not ringing a bell.
Casey: Grace?
Grace: Oh gosh. It's two guys on motorcycles?
Casey: Your hint for the song title is, “Destined To Be Untamable.”
[clip: Steppenwolf - Born to be Wild]
Grace: [sung] Born to Be Wild [sung].
Dallas: Oh right, yeah.
Grace: Right?
Casey: Yes.
Grace: Okay. There we go.
Dallas: I'm really glad they just named the song the main thing that they sing. That's always the best and easiest way.
Casey: That helps, yeah.
Grace: I had no idea that was… that’s the name of the movie, too?
Casey: No. Uh, your hint for the movie's name is, “Chill Passenger.”
Dallas: Hmmm.
Grace: Chill passenger.
Dallas: Cool… no.
Grace: People are gonna be mad that our movie knowledge is so bad.
Casey: Not difficult. Not a difficult passenger, but a...
Grace: Oh, Easy–Easy Rider? Easy Rider?
Casey: There you go.
Dallas: I have not seen this movie either.
Casey: And do you happen to know the band's name that did that song?
Dallas: I do not.
Grace: I should but I don't. I'm probably gonna be like, "Oh, yeah.”
Casey: Your hint is Walken' Coyote. Walken' Coyote.
Dallas: Casey, you were born in the '60s, weren't you?
Casey: No, but I've listened--
Dallas: I would say 1959.
Casey: -but I have and do listen to a lot of classic rock.
Grace: I should know this.
Casey: It's Steppenwolf is the name of the band.
Dallas: Ahhh, okay. Great name.
Grace: Oh yep. Okay. Okay.
Casey: Yeah, so the film stars Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, who also directed it, Hopper did.
Grace: No way.
Casey: So Fonda originally wanted Crosby, Stills, and Nash to score the movie. Here's their song “Helplessly Hoping.”
[clip: Crosby, Stills & Nash - Helplessly Hoping]
Dallas: Okay, fun fact. Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Taylor, because the drummer's name was Dallas Taylor.
Grace: Oh my gosh. That’s right.
Casey: That’s right. That’s right.
Dallas: Because I still get people writing me on social media that say, "Wait, are you the drummer of Crosby, Stills, and Nash?"
Casey: Even though he’d be like 30 years older than you.
Dallas: Yes. Yeah.
Grace: You were a child prodigy.
Dallas: Yes.
Grace: You were in this band.
Casey: So yeah, Fonda wanted Crosby, Stills and Nash, which would have felt a lot closer to the sound of The Graduate, but Dennis Hopper wasn't so sure that folky sound would be a good fit.
Casey: So in the book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," Dennis Hopper described firing the band from the movie saying, quote, "They picked me up in a limo at Columbia and drove me over, played the music. I told Steve Stills, 'Look, you guys are really good musicians, but honestly, anyone who drives in a limo can't comprehend my movie, so I'm gonna have to say no to this. And if you guys try to get in the studio again, I may have to cause you some bodily harm.” End quote.
Dallas: Oof.
Casey: Good old crazy Dennis Hopper. Also I'm sure that most of the other bands that ended up on the soundtrack had also ridden in limos, so it seems like a weird line to draw.
Dallas: And Dennis Hopper just doesn't do limos?
Casey: I know, right? I'm sure he rode in limos too, so it's pretty ridiculous.
Dallas: I mean prom at least?
Grace: “Can't comprehend my film.”
Casey: Yeah.
Grace: It's so–it's very, like, melodramatic in the way I imagine Hollywood to be sometimes.
Casey: Right, exactly. But according to David Crosby, he and Hopper were actually friends, and he also said that he was actually the basis for the character that Dennis Hopper played in Easy Rider.
Casey: So in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1970, David Crosby said, quote:
[music in: Nikolas Jones - Flying the Flag]
Crosby Quote: Dennis and Peter used to watch us a lot. Peter's been a good friend for years, and Dennis too, for that matter. I wouldn't say that Dennis had me down exactly. He did grow a pretty good mustache, I'll say that for him. I really dig Dennis. He's outrageous. I went to a wedding the other day, and he's still outrageous."
[music out]
Casey: So obviously there wasn't really any bad blood between them.
Dallas: “Outrageous” is a great way to describe someone.
Casey: Yeah.
Dallas: Casey and Grace, you are both outrageous.
Casey: Thank you. Compliment accepted.
Casey: So anyway, they fired Crosby, Stills & Nash, and during production, the movie's editor started using rock music from his record collection to score the film, including artists like Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Electric Prunes… And similar to The Graduate, they eventually realized those songs worked great, so they decided to pay for the rights to license that music, which ended up costing about three times the actual cost of the movie.
Grace: Wow.
Casey: So it's an early example of a key aspect of needle drops, which is that they can cost a lot of money.
Grace: Totally.
Casey: But the soundtrack to Easy Rider went to number six on the Billboard charts. And there's an interesting detail, which is that in the movie they play this song, which I'm guessing you've heard.
[clip: The Band - The Weight]
Grace: Ohhh. Wait, can you keep playing it?
Casey: Uh, that's all I have clipped until I have the reveal of the chorus.
Grace: Sorry I was like, "I know it!” Yeah.
Casey: Which the chorus doesn't actually say the title of the song, so I can play that if you wanna hear it.
Grace: Okay.
[clip: The Band - The Weight]
Grace: Oh gosh. Yeah, what is this called?
Dallas: This song should've been called "Take a Load Off Annie?"
Casey: Fanny, I think it is.
Dallas: Fanny. “Take a Load Off Fanny."
Casey: Well, your hint for the song title is, “Pounds or kilograms.”
Dallas: Ooh…
Grace: Oh. I don't know.
Dallas: Weights and Measures?
Casey: Yes, exactly. Close enough. The song title is "The Weight."
Dallas: Okay.
Grace: Oh I didn't - I never knew what that was called.
Casey: And your hint for the artist is, “The Artist.”
Dallas: Oh, okay. Alright.
Grace: Oh, is it The Band?
Dallas: Oh, okay.
Casey: You got it!
Grace: Yes! Yes!
Casey: “The Weight” by The Band.
Grace: These clues are great.
Dallas: Wow.
Casey: So that song is in the movie, but the band's record label refused to license it for the soundtrack album. So on the soundtrack, there's a cover version of it by an artist called Smith, and it's basically a kinda soundalike that's trying to be as close as possible to the original.
[clip: Smith - The Weight]
Grace: It's not the same.
Casey: Yeah, it's in a different key and it's just... Yeah, it's not quite the same.
Grace: Interesting.
Casey: And that's something that happens a lot where there are certain songs that get used in a movie but then don't appear on the soundtrack album, and it's because they're completely separate agreements with separate negotiations.
Casey: And it kind of makes sense if you think about it that a record label might be happy to license their music for a film in order to promote their music and give it exposure, but then when a competing record label wants to put out the soundtrack, they're less willing to make a deal or they wanna charge more than the other label's willing to pay.
Grace: Hmm.
[music in: Wesley Slover - Not Quite Summer]
After the break, some of the most famous needle drops of the '70s and '80s. Plus the story behind the best-selling album of all time.
[music out]
MIDROLL
[Microhertz bumper]
Casey: So after The Graduate and Easy Rider, more filmmakers are starting to understand the power of a good needle drop, and seeing it as another tool in their toolkit to really shape the tone of a scene.
[music sneaks in: The Rolling Stones - Jumpin' Jack Flash]
Casey: So like in 1973, Martin Scorsese released the crime drama Mean Streets starring a young Robert De Niro. And De Niro's entrance in that movie is this slow-motion shot of him walking into a bar with his arms around two women, and it's set to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by The Rolling Stones.
[music up, then under]
Casey: So it's an early example of Scorsese using a big punchy needle drop, which of course he'd do a lot more of in films like Goodfellas and Casino and The Departed.
Grace: Right.
Casey: And for record labels, they realized that needle drops were just a great way to sell more records. So in 1977, a movie came out that was a smash hit, and its soundtrack became the best-selling album of all time. Not just the best-selling soundtrack, but the best-selling album period, until it was knocked out by Michael Jackson's Thriller in the mid 80s.
Grace: Oooh.
Casey: Do you want to take a guess of what that might be?
Grace: 1977?
Casey: Yes.
Grace: I have no clue.
Casey: Were you alive yet, Dallas? Not quite?
Dallas: Not quite.
Grace: My movie knowledge from this era is lacking.
Casey: That's fine. You definitely know some of the songs off this soundtrack, though.
Grace: Okay.
Casey: So here is the title track of the movie.
Grace: Okay.
[clip: Bee Gees - Night Fever]
Grace: Oh. Oh my gosh.
Dallas: Grease.
Casey: Nope.
Dallas: What?
Grace: No… it’s, um. Okay it’s The Bee Gees.
Dallas: Saturday Night Fever?
Casey: There you go. You got it.
Grace: Saturday Night Fever. Yes. Yep.
Casey: I was gonna say your hint for the song and the movie is, “Sunday Morning Flu.”
Grace: I love these. My parents are both huge Bee Gees fans, so I grew up listening to the Bee Gees wall-to-wall.
Casey: Were they teaching you disco dance moves at age two?
Grace: You know, they didn't, but it was a missed opportunity 'cause I really would've crushed it.
Casey: Yeah, so that's The Bee Gees song “Night Fever” from the movie Saturday Night Fever.
[clip: Bee Gees - Night Fever]
Grace: [singing along] Fever, night fever. You don't have to show it.
Casey: Nice.
Grace: It's so good
Casey: The film stars John Travolta as a guy who loves disco. So the soundtrack was kind of a hybrid. It had some preexisting songs like “Boogie Shoes” by KC and The Sunshine Band.
Grace: Oh, great song.
[clip: KC and the Sunshine Band - Boogie Shoes]
Grace: [singing along] My, my, my, my, my boogie shoes.
Casey: It had a couple of previous songs by The Bee Gees, but it also had some new ones. At the time, they were in the middle of recording a new album in France when their manager called and he was like, [phone filter] "Hey, I'm working on this movie. It's about a guy who works at a paint store, and he blows all of his money on a Saturday night, and goes to a club and dances to disco music. Can you write some music for it?" [phone filter ends]
Casey: Just a normal phone call from your manager.
Grace: Right, yep.
Casey: And The Bee Gees didn't have time to write entirely new music for the movie, so they basically redirected the songs they had been recording into this soundtrack.
Grace: No kidding!
Casey: And The Bee Gees had been around since the mid-60s, way before disco was a thing. And they had a couple of hit songs in the mid 70s, but Saturday Night Fever was the thing that launched them into the stratosphere of fame. The album went 16 times platinum and produced four number one singles, including “Night Fever” and of course, the iconic “Stayin' Alive.”
Grace: Oh yeah.
[clip: Bee Gees - Stayin’ Alive]
[music sneaks in: The Doors - The End]
Casey: So a couple years later in 1979, there was a film that famously opens with this song. Tell me if you recognize the song or the film.
[music up, then under]
Grace: I don't know this at all.
Dallas: It's nice, but I do not know it. It sounds really nice. It sounds like a trail song that you'd be, you know, walking down a trail in a mountain.
Casey: Your hint for the artist is, "Entrances."
Dallas: Door… The Doors.
Grace: The Doors!
Casey: You got it!
Dallas: Wow. I am not–you–I–I–none of this should give me points. I am literally just doing context clue game right now.
Casey: Well, It proves that my hints are at least working, so I feel good about that.
Grace: Yes, absolutely.
Casey: So your hint for the song title is, "Finale."
Grace: The End?
Casey: You got it.
Dallas: Oh, right. Okay.
Grace: Yes!
[clip: The Doors - The End]
Casey: And do you know what movie “The End” was used in?
Grace: I have no idea. What year was the movie again?
Casey: 79’, and your hint for the movie is, “Immediate Armageddon.”
Grace: Oh, Apocalypse Now!
Casey: Yes.
Dallas: Mmm, ok.
Grace: Ohh, yes. Okay.
Casey: Yep, it was in Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War odyssey.
Grace: Yes.
Casey: It plays in the opening scene while Martin Sheen is kind of wasting away in a hotel room, and it's intercut with slow-motion helicopters and explosions in the jungle. It's this very moody opening piece.
Casey: So Coppola originally wanted to use The Doors' music throughout the soundtrack, but this is the only track that ended up in the theatrical cut. And Coppola talked about this at a panel that he did for the movie's 35th anniversary. Basically, he had written multiple opening sequences for the movie, but he wasn't satisfied with any of them, and he kept changing it.
Casey: So one night during production, he started digging through these barrels they had of their discarded footage and audio. And in an article about that panel, The Hollywood Reporter quoted Coppola as saying…
[music in: OTE - Schizophrenia]
Coppola Quote: I reached into a barrel of this film and at random pulled out a piece of film and put it on the Moviola. It was a lot of smoke. Occasionally you'd see a helicopter skid go by, just very abstract. For the heck of it, I looked at another bin of trim and one said, "The End," The Doors music. I said, "Oh, wouldn't it be funny if we started the movie with 'This is the end' at the beginning? So that's a case of destiny or just chance that helped make the beginning of the movie.
[music out]
Grace: How cool is that?
Casey: Yeah, so supposedly just kind of almost like a pun or like a, just ironic like, “It's the end, but at the beginning!” But it works perfectly for the themes and tone of the movie.
Grace: Totally.
Casey: So in the 1980s, John Hughes became known for needle drops.
Grace: Yes!
Casey: He is the director behind films like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. He actually wrote a whole movie inspired by a song by The Psychedelic Furs called “Pretty in Pink,” which is the title of that movie, and it's also the theme song.
[clip: The Psychedelic Furs - Pretty in Pink]
Casey: And John Hughes also used an iconic needle drop in another movie, which may have already come up in this conversation. I know you've heard this song.
[clip: Yello - Oh Yeah]
Grace: This is in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, too.
[clip continues]
Grace: Yep.
Casey: So yeah, you got the–you know the song title. Go ahead and say it.
Dallas: “Oh yeah.”
Grace: Is it O–Is it literally called “Oh Yeah!?”
Casey: It is literally called “Oh Yeah.”
Dallas: Oh, really? No idea.
Casey: Yes.
Dallas: Just said it out loud hoping that that was the one.
Casey: And your hint for the artist is, “Ringo's Submarine.”
Dallas: Ringo's Submarine?
Grace: Ringo's Submarine?
Casey: So what is noteworthy about Ringo's submarine?
Dallas: It's yellow.
Grace: It’s yellow!
Casey: Yes, so the artist's name is Yello, with no W.
Dallas: Oh.
Grace: Oh, just Y-E-L-L-O.
Casey: That’s it.
Grace: All right.
Casey: So yeah, “Oh Yeah” by Yello appeared in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as you said, Grace. It plays in the scene where Ferris' friend shows him his dad's Ferrari, and they're both kind of drooling over it, and then Ferris ends up stealing it.
Casey: So that band, Yello, was a pretty obscure Swiss synth pop band, and the song was not a hit when the movie was made. The way it ended up in the scene was that Yello's manager happened to know John Hughes' Music Supervisor, a guy named Tarquin Gotch.
Casey: Now, a Music Supervisor is someone who helps craft the soundtrack for a film, but at this point in the mid-'80s, it wasn't a very clearly defined role yet, so we'll go into more detail about that job later on.
Casey: But right now, I'm gonna play you a clip from a short documentary about the song "Oh Yeah." So this clip is Yello's manager talking about a conversation he had with Tarquin Gotch, the Music Supervisor. And Tarquin is telling him about a movie that he's working on.
Manager: Tarquin was saying "Yeah, we've got an interesting soundtrack, but we've got this really important scene. It's kind of the high point of the movie, and we just can't get it." And I was like, "You know what you need? You need some electronic music."
Manager: In the back of my mind, I thought, "He's not gonna go for this, but hey, let's have a pitch." Anyway, I get a phone call the next day… “John loves it. John absolutely loves it.”
Casey: So now you'll hear from Tarquin Gotch, the Music Supervisor, breaking down the scene in the movie.
Tarquin Gotch: Cameron and Ferris see the Ferrari 250, and you have to establish that this car was really special.
Ferris Bueller Clip: The 1962 Ferrari 250 G…
Tarquin Gotch: And the intro to, "Oh Yeah” does that." It's, uh, I ca- I'm not going to imitate it. You can put it in in post-production.
[clip: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off scene plays]
Ferris Bueller Clip: Less than a hundred were made. My father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love. It is his passion… It is his fault he didn’t lock the garage.”
Grace: Oh man, I can see that scene so vividly. This is like one of my mom's favorite movies, so I've seen it like 100 times.
Casey: That’s awesome.
Grace: So good.
Casey: So after Ferris Bueller, that song, "Oh Yeah," appeared in several other '80s movies, and it was also later in South Park, and The Office, and Always Sunny, and lots of commercials. In The Simpsons, it's the theme song of Duffman, the mascot of Duff Beer…
[clip: The Simpsons]
Duffman: Hey Duff Lovers, does anyone in this bar love Duff?
Carl: Hey, it's Duffman!
Lenny: Newsweek said you died of liver failure.
Duffman: Duffman can never die, only the actors who play him. Oh yeah!
Casey: So the song has basically become shorthand for, like, consumerist desire. You see something that you really want and your eyes pop out of your head and "Oh Yeah" starts playing.
Grace: How funny.
Casey: And that association really goes back to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. So it's a great example of how a good needle drop can really define how we think about a song.
Casey: But my favorite needle drop of the '80s is probably this one. I'm guessing you'll know what scene I'm talking about as soon as I play the song.
Grace: Okay.
[clip: Harry Belafonte - Day-O]
Dallas: Beetlejuice.
Grace: Oh my gosh, Beetlejuice!
Dallas: That is one that I have seen 100 times.
Casey: Exactly. So that's "Day-O" by Harry Belafonte.
Grace: Yes.
[clip: Harry Belafonte - Day-O]
Grace: And I always think of the late Catherine O'Hara, 'cause she’s so funny in that scene.
Dallas: Oh, I can't even. I can’t–She's too perfect.
Grace: I know.
Casey: It was famously used in Beetlejuice in the scene where Beetlejuice possesses everyone at a dinner party, and they all start involuntarily dancing and lip-syncing to that song. And yes, Catherine O'Hara is especially fantastic in it, RIP.
Grace: Yes.
Casey: But in an earlier draft of the film, the music that was meant to play in that scene was a 1939 song called “If I Didn't Care” by The Ink Spots.
[clip: The Ink Spots - If I Didn't Care]
Dallas: It sounds like Fallout.
Grace: Oh yeah it does.
Casey: It does.
Dallas: This is in Fallout.
Casey: Is it?
Dallas: Or it was in a "Fallout" trailer or something. Ugh, gives me "Fallout" vibes, so much.
Casey: So yeah, fun song, but very different energy obviously. But apparently Catherine O'Hara had the idea that calypso music would bring more energy to the scene.
Grace: She's so genius.
Dallas: She’s right about everything.
Casey: Right?
Grace: Yep. Yep.
Casey: And Jeffrey Jones, who played her husband, grew up listening to some calypso records, so he suggested a few songs, including "Day-O," which they ultimately ended up choosing.
Grace: No way.
Casey: And then Belafonte's music became a key ingredient to the movie. Like in the opening scene, Alec Baldwin is listening to a different Belafonte song. And at the end, there's the famous scene of Winona Ryder floating in the air while she dances to “Jump in the Line.”
Dallas: Mm-hmm.
Grace: Oh yeah, that's right.
[clip: Harry Belafonte - Jump In The Line]
Dallas and Grace: [singing along] Okay I believe you.
Casey: That song was originally supposed to be the R&B classic, “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
[clip: Percy Sledge - When a Man Loves a Woman]
Grace: Oh my god. So good.
Grace: For me, like the example of Beetlejuice is cool because it shows like the full team working together. Like one of the actors in the cast recommended, like, "Hey, what if we try this?" And then it led to this whole different genre being represented predominantly throughout the movie. It just, it's a–Yeah, it's a cool reminder that like everyone's input has the potential to form these iconic moments.
Casey: Totally.
[music in: Tigerblood Jewel - Bring My Friends]
Casey: So moving from the '80s into the '90s is when the needle drop phenomena really gets cranked up to 11. The role of Music Supervisor really gets solidified around this time and becomes a much more widespread job in Hollywood. And these Music Supervisors are working with directors like Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers, and Wes Anderson, making iconic scenes with all kinds of popular and obscure music.
Casey: But there are also challenges in this time, like famous artists not allowing their music to be used in movies. In the streaming era, there have been re-releases of movies and shows with the original songs replaced, there have been lawsuits about soundalike songs… And all of that is coming up next time.
[music up, then under]
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced by my sound agency, Defacto Sound. To hear more, follow Defacto Sound on Instagram or visit defactosound.com.
Other Voices: This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Colin DeVarney.
Finally, subscribe to my YouTube channel, dallastaylor.mp3. Over there, audio pros of all kinds take me into their creative spaces to show me what they do. You can also find bite-sized versions of these videos on Instagram and TikTok under that same name, dallastaylor.mp3.
Thanks for listening.
[music out]
