I love the movie in its entirety, but I’ve only seen it once (thank you SO much, Molly! I love you!) It’s really just the soundtrack that I’m obsessing over at the moment. I don’t actually own the CD yet, but I am on the lookout for a cheap-ish copy. In the meantime, I have several of the songs, thanks to KaZaa Lite, so I’m okay until such time as I can purchase it.

The songs in this movie are primarily upbeat pieces. Ann Margaret’s “High Times, Hard Times” is a bouncy little show tune that induces a fair amount of Servo-esque tittering. “The World Will Know” (and the Journal, too) is a bit less carefree, but still upbeat for the most part. And any song lead by Christian Bale (Jack) is alright by me. Bill Pullman (Denton) doesn’t have a bad singing voice at all, as illustrated by “King of New York.” My favourite lines from this particular song are “Nobbin’ with all the muckety-mucks, I’m blowin’ my dough and goin’ deluxe” and “I’m one high-falutin’ son of a gun” Great stuff. “Seize the Day” is the perfect song to listen to before confronting The Man (or The Devil...) – I know this from personal experience. “Proud and defiant, we’ll slay the giant” and “Nothing can break us, no one can make us give our rights away” worked really well before going in to speak with that particular tyrannical jerk. And, in any case, you should listen to it because David Moscow (David) has a gorgeous voice. And the harmonies and counterpoint sections of “Carryin’ the Banner” are flat out fun. (“Look, they’re puttin’ up a headline/You call that a headline/The idiot who wrote it must be workin’ for the sun” hee hee)

But my favourites, as usual, are the more emotional songs. “Once and For All” is surprisingly dark (not unlike BatB’s “Mob Song,” also written by Menken) as a declaration of war should be. I love the kind of song that makes me slightly uncomfortable by sheer power and subject matter. The one that I listen to most often, though, is the touchingly beautiful and exceptionally well-written (bet NO ONE was expecting THIS...) “Santa Fe.” Christian Bale’s voice makes the wonderful lyrics all the sweeter. Jack (or rather, Francis) is NOT my favourite character in the movie, or my favourite of Bale’s characters, but jeeze, boy, sing more often!

The credit here really belongs to lyricist Jack Feldman and composer Alan Menken, though. J.A.C. Redford’s score is vurrah nahce, as well. Congrats, guys. You’ve just made another fan ^_^

For a dreamer, night’s the only time of day

Created June 20, 2003