Mix Tape: "We'll Meet Again" in Dr. Strangelove

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, to talk about one of the most infamously ironic song choices out there. And spoiler alert -- if you care about such things for 47 year old movies -- it's all about the ending.

As Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb reaches its bleakly absurd denouement, everyone is plotting for an imagined future. The Soviet ambassador is snapping photos of the "Big Board," the hawkish General Turgidson is predicting a post-apocalyptic "mineshaft gap," and even the title character, an eccentric ex-Nazi, is rising from his wheelchair and crying out, "Sir! I have a plan!" before adding, "Mein Führer! I can walk!" All of their paranoid schemes are self-evidently ridiculous, and ultimately futile, because that's right when the world ends.

But it doesn't end with a whimper, or with a bang: it ends with British songstress Vera Lynn singing her WWII-era hit "We'll Meet Again" over a minute-and-a-half-long montage of mushroom clouds. In a single blow, Kubrick and editor Anthony Harvey (reputedly working from a suggestion by British comedy legend Spike Milligan) render all of the film's frantic negotiations pointless and greet Armageddon with a smile. It's about the most superficially cheery response to annihilation this side of Life of Brian's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," and like that song, it hides bitterness in its whimsy.

The power of this satirical finale lies in the song's historical roots...

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Mix Tape: "Perfect Day" in Trainspotting

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, with the scene that served as my introduction to Lou Reed.

At his best, Danny Boyle knows how to mix memorable visuals, dynamic editing, and pop music into one striking, powerful package. The overdose scene in Trainspotting, his saga of Edinburgh heroin addicts, has all this and more set to the morose tune of Reed's "Perfect Day" (an ironic song title if there ever was one). Anti-hero Mark Renton, eager for "one fucking hit," returns to the desolate apartment of a sleazy dealer, where he shoots up... only to fall into a catatonic stupor, which Boyle represents by having him sink into a hole in the carpet, as if into a grave.

This is when Reed's flatly casual voice breaks in, singing the lyrics ("Just a perfect day, drink sangria in the park...") in a subdued tone that belies their supposed cheerfulness. As the dealer deposits Renton's immobile body on the street to wait for a taxi, Reed bursts into the chorus, and already the irony is palpable: clearly, Renton is having anything but a perfect day. But the irony goes far beyond that simple "happy song, sad scene" incongruity—because the song is self-contradictory to begin with, and the scene isn't merely sad.

Boyle's depiction of the overdose traffics in the same dark, sometimes satirical humor as the rest of Trainspotting, and it's shot in the same kinetic, self-conscious style. For example, the burgundy carpet, which blinkers Renton's POV shots while he's unconscious, functions as both a metaphor for his isolation in the depths of his overdose, and as a bleak visual joke. Similarly, the grim way he's passed along from dealer to cabbie to hospital orderlies borders on kafkaesque. This is no self-serious afterschool special; Boyle has an eye for the funny side of excessive drug use.

This clash between tragic subject matter and flashy style could come across as ridiculous or tasteless, but any such tonal ruffles are smoothed out by the faultless use of "Perfect Day." Despite occasional dips into ironic enthusiasm on one end and melancholy on the other, Reed's voice is stable throughout the song, almost to the point of monotone; this makes it the ideal song to accompany Renton's comatose journey to the emergency room. Even in its loudest, most climactic moments, "Perfect Day" is still as steady and patient as an elevator ride, and balances out the bounciness of Boyle's camera.

And throughout the scene, it offers a bittersweet lyrical counterpoint to Renton's current predicament, with the line "You just keep me hanging on..." ringing out just as the dealer shoves Renton into the back of the taxi, and the closing refrain, "You're going to reap just what you sow," as a dire reminder that he brought this miserable situation upon himself. It's also starkly appropriate that a song partially about self-delusion and ignoring one's problems should arrive in the center of a film about drug addicts.

According to rumor, "Perfect Day" is actually about heroin, and that may be case, but its usage here isn't just a matter of finding a song whose topic matches the film. (Had that been the case, Lou Reed wrote a song called "Heroin" that could've been used instead.) The scene derives much of its sticking power from the very precise interplay between the song's unique tone, the editing, and the camerawork, which together sustain a forlorn mood laced with many ironies. This seamless integration of visuals and music brings a light touch to the protagonist's near-death and rebirth, and forever entangles "Perfect Day" with the image of Ewan McGregor dying in a carpet.

Mix Tape: "Put the Blame on Mame" in Gilda

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, with one of the sultriest musical numbers ever committed to film.

Nightclub acts are scattered throughout the seamy annals of film noir. For starters, you've got Lauren Bacall singing "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine" at the casino in The Big Sleep, and Veronica Lake putting on a magic act in This Gun for Hire. Live music, cut with equal parts despair and eroticism, is just perfect for noir's postwar underworld. In Gilda, Rita Hayworth outdoes every other noir chanteuse with her unforgettable rendition of "Put the Blame on Mame." It's sexy, sassy, and bundles up the film's themes in a black satin ribbon.

By the time the nightclub performance arrives, though, we've already heard Hayworth rehearsing the song twice. She's humming along to it during her indelible introduction ("Gilda, are you decent?" / "Me?") and later, her paramour-turned-husband Johnny (Glenn Ford) catches her singing it for Uncle Pio, the old washroom attendant. Throughout, the song acts as Gilda's leitmotif, emblematic of her fearsome sexual power. It's a side of her that the jealous, overprotective Johnny doesn't want anyone else to see.

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Mix Tape: "Porque Te Vas" in Cría Cuervos

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, to talk about one of my absolute favorite uses of popular music in film.

It's from Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos, an underseen but beautiful film about three orphaned sisters being raised by their aunt in the twilight years of Franco's Spain. The whole film is seen from the (often distorted) perspective of the sensitive 8-year-old Ana, played by Spirit of the Beehive's precocious Ana Torrent, as she reckons with the loss of her adultering Fascist father and her sick, emotionally fragile mother, whose ghost is played by Geraldine Chaplin.

As she retreats into her inner world of memory and fantasy, away from the mundane realities of school and her strait-laced aunt, Ana has one major ally: the song "Porque Te Vas" ("Because You're Leaving") recorded by the British-Spanish musician Jeanette in 1974. It's a surprisingly downbeat pop song, but still fairly generic, and that suits Saura's purposes perfectly. After all, a song doesn't need to be perfect to be the cultural centerpiece of a small child's world.

For Ana, "Porque Te Vas" is special. It speaks to her. It's not profound, but it boasts a catchy beat and unapologetically emotive lyrics, including a refrain that roughly translates to, "All the promises of my love will go with you...", and that's more than enough.

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Mix Tape: "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" in It Happened One Night

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, to talk about an impromptu musical number that doubles as a historical document. Frank Capra’s Oscar-sweeping screwball comedy It Happened One Night is naturally best remembered for the cute love story that unfolds (over the course of several nights) between stars Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

However, it’s also something of a postapocalyptic travelogue, since the odd couple’s odyssey by bus up the East Coast gives them a panoramic view of a nation debilitated by the Depression. They run into purse snatchers, con men, starving children, and crowds of poor families forced together by poverty. For Colbert’s spoiled heiress, it’s a shocking glimpse of how the other half lives. But the world she discovers is not all negative: the bus’s passengers comprise a makeshift community, and it’s one that loves to sing.

So while the bus chugs along, a band suddenly forms in the back—complete with fiddle, guitar, and vocalist—and, apropos nothing, starts playing the decades-old standard “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” Soon the whole bus joins in on the chorus, and individual passengers stand up to sing the verses alone. Out of nowhere, a form of communal vaudeville springs up, a show-within-a-show that Gable and Colbert watch with delight.

Everyone gets a chance to shine, including a mincing sailor who gives a lurid emphasis to the line “His eyes would undress every girl in the house!” (It’s a surprisingly bawdy song for such a public performance, but no one seems to notice or care.) The film’s main plot continues during the song courtesy of clever editing, as close-ups on the sleazy Shapely and the distracted bus driver appear alongside wide shots of all the other passengers with the band as their focal point. But this is decidedly a detour, albeit a spectacular one, from the fugitive couple’s episodic progress; it’s a sequence more about setting and the nature of Depression-era bus travel than about plot.

This spell of utter mirth ends, of course, with a minor tragedy, as the bus careens into a muddy ditch. Soon thereafter, Gable and Colbert lose the rest of their money and have to leave the bus for good due to Shapely’s half-baked scheming. But that spur-of-the-moment musical number is still a chance for bonding, as the sheer cuteness of the passengers’ singing cuts through the main characters’ lingering cynicism and world-weariness. (Gable even gets in on the act, passing a flask around to some dancing fellow travelers.)

Maybe it’s an American instinct to respond to times of crisis by putting on a show. Or maybe this is just a manifestation of the cliché that poor people are happier and have an easier time cutting loose—the same one witnessed in Titanic when Rose goes below decks to dance a polka away from her stultifying society friends. (Or in My Man Godfrey, or Holiday, or any number of other Depression-era comedies.) Cliché or not, though, the scene in It Happened One Night feels so alive and strangely naturalistic despite its improbability, because the sailor and all the other participants bring such enthusiasm to their performances. For these few minutes, money and class are meaningless: all that matters is the music.

(Trivia time: the guitarist in this scene is Ken Carson, who would later join the band Sons of the Pioneers. With them, he helped record the theme song for The Searchers and the song “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” later used in the opening of The Big Lebowski.)