Interview: David Lang on "Simple Song No. 3" and Storytelling through Music
Friday, February 19, 2016 at 4:34PM 
Lady Gaga may have understandably hogged the media's coverage of this year's Best Original Song category but she's not the only Grammy winning composer in the mix. Diane Warren (the main writer of "Til It Happens to You") and The Weeknd "Earned It" are also Grammy winners. So is David Lang, an eclectic composer best known for his classical work. He's nominated for "Simple Song No. 3" from Youth, the lynchpin song of the whole movie. Like Jane Fonda's movie star in the same film, his song is hyped consistently by the story and characters before we fatefully cross paths with it.
Lang hasn't worked in movies too often, though he did contribute to the incredibly memorable music in Requiem for a Dream (2000). After his elevating and Oscar nominated work on Youth, we're hoping he spends more time composing for our screens.
When David Lang sat down to talk to The Film Experience I warned him that I know next to nothing about music. The good humored composer joked, absurdly, that he barely knows anything either. Lang is one of very few Oscar nominees in the Academy's history to have won a Pulitzer Prize before their Oscar honors. (Here's our talk edited slightly for length and clarity.)
NATHANIEL: Famously you wrote "Simple Song No. 3" before Sorrentino's screenplay was complete. How quickly did you write it? Did Sorrentino ask for several iterations?
DAVID LANG: I work pretty fast. The way this worked was I made a version of the song and I would get a singer to sing it and send the demo to Paolo. I basically sent him three versions of the song. I probably spent much more time having these philosophical conversations with him and reading the script and having dark neurotic nightmares about it than actually doing the work!
NATHANIEL: Why was that?
DAVID LANG: I was really nervous about doing a good job. And I didn't have anything to go on but a draft of the script. I tried to think how I would feel at the end of my life looking back. All Paolo really told me is that it needed to be emotional. I would ask him 'What kind of emotion: regretful? triumphant? miserable? excited?' And he would say 'Oh, you will figure it out.!'
[Laughs] The lyrics themselves are very interpretable. It sounds like a recitation of incomplete thoughts in a way.
Yes. I wanted them to feel like they were all leading up to that final sentence "When you whisper my name" The ending of the song would be the payoff, imagining this intimate relationship between lovers.
So what was Paolo's first reaction to the demos?
He wrote me back and said
I am crying a little but I need to cry a lot.'
[Laughs]
He hadn't the finished the script yet. I like to think that because I made the music emotionally complicated that when he finished the script he could make the character emotionally complicated as well.
"Simple Song No. 3" is described in the plot as being part of a song cycle but obviously the song cycle itself does not exist. While you were composing were you thinking of this as just a part of a larger whole?
I really wasn't. If I thought about the cycle at all I felt sorry for "Simple Song No. 1" and "Simple Song No. 2" because the Queen didn't like them!
Michael Caine's composer conducts imaginary music in one key sceneHa! Did you try to write the music as if you were Michael Caine's character?
I tried to do that. I read as much of the script as I could and tried to make it authentic to the character.
I know you often work via commissions for symphonies and operas. Is this kind of vague directive normal for you?
The difference with what I normally do is you can't really get fired from those jobs! Paolo needed something specific for the movie and yet he couldn't tell me what it was. So there was always this sense that I could be fired for not being able to give a good version of an unspoken feeling. In a way that made it more personal for me. All I really had to do go on in the studio was my own imagination. Usually in film, as you know, the composer is the last one in. Everyone is done and you have the visuals and you're responding to something very specific.
Here I really had to figure everything out: what does music mean to this character? How is this a special means of communication for him? How do I convey in the music who he is really? What I was thinking is: he can't talk to his daughter, he doesn't tell anything true or emotional to his best friend. Music is the only place where he is able to say something truthful to himself.
When did you finally see the finished film?
I saw some of the conducting scene with the cows while that was being done. But that was all I saw before Cannes. it wasn't until Cannes that I saw the film from start to finish. It was so incredible to have this knowledge of the music and the script and then see it. It was very very powerful.
Your task was daunting. I saw Youth fairly early in its festival run and knew nothing about it, really. And the whole time I was watching it I was thinking "are they actually going to let us hear this famous song? It's never going to live up to all this hype!". And then we only get it at the end and it's so moving. The song really elevates the film.
Thank you. I really felt like people in the world don't know what a composer is or what a composer does. I had one desire: to do a good job for Paolo and for this film. Composers have a valuable function for humanity. I really wanted the song to work, not just in a Hollywood way, but to show what classical musical can do. At that moment, I felt like an advocate for my field.
People should know that this isn't your first movie. You worked on that incredible score for Requiem for a Dream. The arrangements? That score really should have been Oscar nominated.
Clint Mansell did the score. At the last minute they invited the Kronos Quartet in to play along with them. So I wrote the music that the Kronos Quartet plays along with the score. I wasn't really a composer -- I was sort of a matchmaker?
I was reading about some of your other work. Your new opera "The Anatomy Theater" which premieres in June, sounds just morbid and fascinating. I'm guessing from your past work that you love storytelling with music.
I do! That's why I'm drawn to opera. Narrative is interesting to me.
After the experience with Youth would you love a film version of any of your past projects? Will you do more films?
That would be great. I've loved working on the film and the response to it. People like movies and they listen to music in movies very openly and the audience is very large. All of that is inspiring to me.
What was your relationship like with the Oscars before the nomination? Do you normally watch them?
I always watch them. I watch movies a lot, especially weird ones. I live next to an arthouse so I go all the time. I'm very curious about music in movies. It's been interesting at all these Oscar parties. There are famous actors running around but I make a B line to composers because they're the ones I want to know. I've met everyone in my category.
I was reading on your bio that your music "resists categorization" . So how do you feel being referred to as "classical musician" or the new label of "film composer" or "Academy Award nominee"?
Let's just say that if I had to choose a label to live with "Academy Award Winning Composer" would be a very nice label.
Reader Comments (4)
What a great interview! I adore the music in this film, which I love more than most folks I know. The music was so in sync with the abstract visual design of the film. I am a huge Gaga fan, but I wouldn't be mad if Simple Song wins the Oscar.
brookesboy - i'm rooting for the upset. I love Gaga but that is not a great song. She's winning on her name and popularity. Ah well. at least diane warren will finally have an Oscar.
Simple song#3 is the most haunting song and has stayed in head since I saw the film in November...
Simple Song #3 is the best song of the bunch. I really hope that it wins.