A long time ago in a suburb far, far away…sounds familiar? Well, if it does, you are a true Star Wars fan. If not, keep reading. Someday you may become one. There is still some hope for you as the Force is strong in you, but you are not a Jedi, yet. The fact that you have stumbled upon this article is proof of that. What am I talking about? I am going to talk about the soundtrack of Star Wars and some other cult movies. The fact that they became cult movies could not have been possible, if not for their awesome soundtracks. I have been a great fan of original soundtracks of English movies since school. The first time I watched Superman, I just couldn’t believe the awesomeness of the soundtrack that I took my two-in-one near the television and recorded the entire soundtrack while it played during the end credits. Thus, began my journey into the world of original motion picture soundtracks.
As a college-going (bunking, actually) youth, I searched in vain for soundtrack albums in music stores in Mumbai. During those days, Rhythm House in Kala Ghoda was the only self-respecting music store. We did not have the Planet Ms and malls overflowing with music CDs and choices. Every month, I used to go and enquire if any cassette or gramophone record of these soundtracks were available. I usually came back disappointed. So, I decided to make my own collection of original motion picture soundtracks. My cassette, when found after 50 years, I dreamt, would sell in an auction for a million dollars as it would have been the greatest idea of the world thought by a teenager. Later, I was to find out to my earth-shattering disappointment that the idea had already been picked up by others, especially rival music companies. I vowed to sue them.
I got myself a C-60 cassette and rented out all my favourite movies that had a fantastic soundtrack. The list included, Superman, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Supergirl, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom, Back to the Future and Star Trek. There were many others, but I can’t remember them all. In the silence of the night, after my parents, grandmother and brother were asleep, I used to play all the movies, towards the end credits and record them on the cassette keeping the two-in-one close to the television speakers. I made a nice cover for the cassette, in my own handwriting, and a table of contents. This was my own personal collection of Original Motion Picture Soundtracks. Nobody would prevent me from having one, now.
Most of these tracks were composed by John Williams. I was in super awe of this man. How could one person, in his entire lifetime, compose so many great soundtracks, and that too, consistently. He has done the soundtracks for other films too, such as, Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Home Alone and three Harry Potter films. But all these were not my favourites. Let me list my favourites to give you an idea of what this is all about and if you are new to this subject, maybe you may develop a liking to the same.
For a Few Dollars More
Listen to this piece first using the adjacent YouTube link. We had a gramophone record of Hugo Montenegro who released the cover version of the album in the US from the original composition by Ennio Morricone. I heard this piece perhaps when I was in my fourth standard (grade) and instantly fell in love with it. I saw the movie much later. The whistle, which is the basis of the soundtrack along with the morsing (Jew’s Harp) creates a vivid picture of a lone man riding in the desert (the West) played superbly by Clint Eastwood. The soundtrack starts slowly, indicating the stark barrenness and loneliness of the desert and the west (as shown in the movie) and graduates to the crescendo signifying victory, mostly revenge. The final duel is the high point of this movie. Observe the stillness of the three characters that the director has captured in the climax. No action sequences, no dialogues, just a simple piece of music and stillness. Clint Eastwood describes it beautifully on the philosophical allure of portraying western loner, when he says, “Westerns. A period gone by, the pioneer, the loner operating by himself, without benefit of society. It usually has something to do with some sort of vengeance; he takes care of the vengeance himself, doesn’t call the police. Like Robin Hood. It’s the last masculine frontier. Romantic myth. I guess, though it’s hard to think about anything romantic today. In a Western you can think, Jesus, there was a time when man was alone, on horseback, out there where man hasn’t spoiled the land yet."
Superman
This is the best. In fact, whenever I am alone and want to sing to myself a motivating instrumental piece, this one is the first that comes to my mind. I am sure every boy wanted to be Superman. I wanted to. In fact, I had planned the three boons that I would ask God, if He ever appeared in front of me. Making me Superman was the first. It never struck me that I was just 5’ 4” with a puny body. I just figured that He would take care of all that. When the first Superman movie released, I still remember, my Dad took me to watch it at Sterling (Near VT). It was raining heavily and, I think, we both were wearing raincoats and were drenched. When the movie began, and along with it the titles, it was simply jaw-dropping. I had never seen titles like these before. And the music. It was to become the signature tune for several things, including the relationship with my son. Observe how, when it begins, it is distant, like the music is telling us a story of a planet, far away in another Galaxy, and then slowly the revelation of Kal-El, son of Jor-El, and then Superman! The piece that repeats is what signifies the character of Superman. As a child, my son had a Superman suit, with the cape (we in our childhood used towels). I used to lift him, play the Superman theme music and he used to fly to all the rooms in our house. Many days, he used to wear the Superman dress and wait for me to come back from office so that he could fly! Me and my brother used to sing this complete theme with our vocals (sounds stupid when you are doing it, but its fun). My brother found his love for original soundtracks from the cassette I made and my madness. Whenever you listen to this soundtrack, you can actually ‘feel’ like Superman, flying, zipping from one crisis to another, helping people, and preventing catastrophes. If you have seen the movie, watch the final scene where Superman flies into space, turns, looks at the sun, and then smiles at you (we have watched this a 1000 times at least). Classic!
Star Wars
This starts with the crescendo. It is the ultimate war soundtrack. If you want to go to battle or before a battle, listen to this. It will rev you up. I keep it on my phone as I go to battle almost every weekday. Star Wars is a cult classic. An entire generation grew up watching Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia. Most wanted to be like Han Solo, a few like Luke and a very small percentage like Obi Wan Kenobi. Me and my brother used to have the famous light sabre duels at home with plastic pipes, umbrellas, brooms, sticks, anything. My brother is 10 years younger to me so when we saw Star Wars, I was around 13-14 and he was 3-4. We used to enact the duels between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader from Part V (The Empire Strikes Back) or Part VI (Return of the Jedi). In Part V, Dart Vader wins the duel and Luke loses his hand. In part VI, Luke wins and Vader loses his hand and finally dies. Since I was older, I always managed to bully my brother into playing Luke from part V or Vader from part VI so that he loses and I win. After a while, he realised that something was fishy in this arrangement and we used to alternate our parts. Again, like Superman, we both had the complete soundtrack by heart and used to sing it like we were part of a philharmonic orchestra, each of us singing a separate track. A variation of the Star Wars theme was introduced in the Empire Strikes Back. This piece is simply Darth Vader. The signature tune is called the Imperial March. Darth Vader, arguably is the one of the greatest villains in motion picture history. This tune, just fits his persona, his menacing style and the fact that he has no regret in killing anybody who comes in his path. Listen to it here played by a symphony orchestra. The original is available here. A hilarious version can be seen here.
Back to the Future
Whenever me and my children are in the car, and we are racing at 80-100 kmph, this is the soundtrack playing in our minds, or we are singing it or it is playing in our car audio system. If you have seen the Back To The Future trilogy, you will understand what I am saying. Whenever Marty McFly, the protagonist, travels back and forth in time, i.e. when his DeLorean hits 88 miles per hour, this is the soundtrack playing in the background. Steven Spielberg who produced the movie rarely works with any other music composer but John Williams. This movie was one of those rare deviations. Coming from Alan Silvestri, this can be considered one of his best and most popular works. Alan was not considered as the first choice for the music of this movie. It was at Robert Zemeckis’ insistence, that Spielberg consented. Robert’s advice to Alan was to create something grand and epic to impress Spielberg. And how grand and epic it was! You must watch the last scene in the first part of the trilogy where the doc is hanging from the clock tower and Marty is racing down the road to catch the electricity from the lightning strike and then travels back to the future. Pay attention to the background score during this tension-packed scene. I always have this soundtrack in my car. Even now, even if I am alone, and if I am speeding, this is the soundtrack I play. Hoping someday that the ‘flux capacitor’ would activate the time circuits and send me back to the future!
Indiana Jones
There is no archaeologist, rogue, or suave professor better than Indiana Jones. And John Williams once again, creates one of the best soundtracks ever to represent this character. One of the best teams ever to be brought together for a project, this trilogy had George Lucas as the producer and story writer, Steven Spielberg as the director, starring Harrison Ford as Dr. Indiana Jones and John Williams for the music. It cannot get better than this. The idea came to both Lucas and Spielberg while building a sand-castle on a beach in Hawaii. There are several notable scenes in this trilogy where the soundtrack has played an impressive role. The best among them is in the third part at the end of the movie when Indiana, his father Dr. Jones played by Sir Sean Connery and others ride into the sunset. The music has something mysterious about it but at the same time also has lot of fervour. You can play it and feel extremely motivated and charged. You may also get into the mood for some adventure and risk-taking. Just like the Imperial March from Star Wars, John Williams composed another version of this soundtrack for the second film in the trilogy. The piece is called Slave Children’s Crusade made for the hundreds of children enslaved by the film’s villain, Mola Ram played by Amrish Puri. The Slave Children’s Crusade is a beautiful deviation from the main theme but has been seamlessly fused into one another in the soundtrack of the second movie. The marching tune with an Indian tune in the background creates an environment of danger and the unknown. I used part of this tune in one of our fusion compositions played for a college function. Apart from being an astronaut, Superman, James Bond, I also always wanted to be Indiana Jones.
When I started writing this article, I thought I would rank my favourites in descending order as my best five. Then I decided against it. Ranking would spoil the fun and create unnatural comparisons between musical creations that are incomparable. To develop an ear for instrumental music, and that too Western Classical based instrumental music is not conventional for us Indians, as we are used to our popular music always being accompanied with vocals. But, if you start, and listen to some of the best, you may eventually fall in love them.
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http://www.empireonline.com/features/john-williams
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