The MamaPop Roundtable: The Movie Sdtk Of Your Life

Nee! And Huzzah! And It's just a flesh wound! And welcome to this week's MamaPop Roundtable, where the MamaPop writers answer enmass a single challenging, thought-provoking, or otherwise engaging question. We then ask that you, the reader, contribute your response to the same question in comments.

We invite readers to submit questions for the MamaPop writers to answer, and if we pick your question you will be handsomely rewarded with PDA and linkage. Please send your Roundtable questions to: roundtable@mamapop.com

This week's Roundtable is [drumroll]:

Q: When the movie of your life is made, what song will be played over the opening credits, and what song will accompany the closing credits? BONUS: Pick one additional song you'd want on the soundtrack.

TwoBusy: As much as I'd love to dream that mine will be a story told on an epic scale, the truth is that when they make the small, dark movie of my life (to steal a line from a lovely Greg Brown song that, ironically enough, won't actually be featured in the small, dark movie of my life), it will be a love story - for, inevitably, all great stories are love stories at the core - and as such will open to a montage scene. It will be a bittersweet, funny-in-a-sad-way montage of me (actually: the staggeringly handsome actor who will play me) looking for love in all the wrong places, readying myself to fall hopelessly head-over-heels for one beautiful woman after another, only to repeatedly fail, fall, collapse and find myself alone. The perfect song to accompany this? The Pernice Brothers' Weakest Shade of Blue: a gorgeously chipper little love song that repeatedly asks "Could it be so wrong?" while never presuming the answer might be anything other than a resounding "Yes."

Of course, the storyline will follow the key, core romance of my life. And as is to be expected, there must be a dark cloud before the silver lining is discovered... a time when all seems hopeless and lost, and the dream of a great future seems infinitely far away and impossible. The song playing as you see me wandering the streets of Boston at 4am, shattered and lost? Lori Carson's Through the Cracks — as broken and wrenching a song as you'll ever hear, something akin to Rickie Lee Jones-meets-American Music Club. "I love you baby, but I don't know how we'll make it... I'm falling through the cracks; I'm feeling kind of lost, and I can't make it back." This is guaranteed sniffles-in-the-audience time.

Then: the big finale. The engagement on a mountaintop. It's a moment of sweet goofiness, and as our hero and beautiful heroine wander away together across the summit, the camera pulling back to show the great exposed granite face and endless blue sky and ocean beyond, the music will swell into the gorgeous crescendo (with closing credits) of Bike's Sunrise: a glorious, surging, noisy and beautiful ballad/anthem by onetime Straitjacket Fits guy Andrew Brough that feels as joyful and complex and earned as the great love itself.

Jennie:
Song for the opening credits: I'd have to say "She Likes Purple" by Wideawake. This song is the inspiration for my personal blog -- which is more or less my life story -- so it's only fitting. It's kind of a funny little song, written for the lead singer of the band's younger sister, but when I first heard it, I thought, "Yep, could have been written for me."

Song for closing credits: "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery. I just recently heard this, and it's pretty fitting for a closing sequence. If we could go back in our lives, it'd be mighty tempting to change a couple things. But we can't, so we're stuck with the time we've got. Better make it good.

Another: "Holiday in Spain" by the Counting Crows. I've always said if I don't see Spain before I die, it will be one of my greatest regrets. So, let's hope when the movie of my life is made, I can include that trip.

Sweatpantsmom:
First of all, the movie of my life would have to be directed by John Singleton, since he’s one of my favorite directors who directed one of my favorite movies, “Boyz n the Hood.” Also, that movie was filmed on the same block where I grew up, a factoid I like to pull out at parties to impress people when I fail to wow them with my trick where I put my entire fist in my mouth.

That said, it stands to reason that the song that would be played over the opening credits would be a song from “Boyz n the Hood,” “Ooh Child” by the Five Stairsteps, which tells of a hope for a better tomorrow. It’s a great song even if it weren’t from that movie, which by the way was filmed on the block where I grew up. Hey, check out my fist in my mouth!

As for the closing credits, how about “Single Ladies” by Beyoncé. No particular reason, except that I love the song and feel it would provide a snappy, upbeat mood for the closing credits, which may or may not feature me in a black leotard re-creating the video.

Kelly:
Opening credits: "Isn't She Lovely," by Stevie Wonder, not because I'm that in love with myself, but because my parents always said that that song reminded them of me being born and...yeah. *tear*

Closing credits: I guess that depends on how my life turns out. What immediately sprung to mind was "Little Girl Blue" by Nina Simone. Because it's sweet and sad and about a woman whose life at time reduces her to sitting and counting her fingers and, well, shucks. That's how mine goes sometimes. However, I like to think that it will be more epic and less depressing, so I'm going to shoot for "Born Slippy" by Underworld. Yes, this decision is heavily influenced by how many times I saw Trainspotting during my formative years, but it's a song that's both uplifting and reflective and that's kind of how I want to go out.

Bonus: "Lovely Day" by Bill Whithers. Because it's just my anthem.

Sweetney:
Opening credits: "For Reverend Green" by Animal Collective, because its dissonance is simultaneously skull-crushingly shocking and jaw-droppingly thrilling to me (much like life, I suppose). There's a slightly unhinged frailty to his voice and the lyrics, and a majestic swelling that pulses in the music behind it, broken with those punctuating primal screams that seem like both a profound, almost ecstatic kind of release, as well as evidence of someone coming undone, unraveling. Yep.

Closing credits: (prepare to collectively groan) "Independence Day" by Elliott Smith. I know, I know, I use this song for everything, but if we suppose this to be punctuating the end of my days, I'd want no other song for it. Everybody knows, everybody knows, everybody knows, you only live a day, but it's brilliant anyway. Yes. Exactly. Perfect.

Bonus track: "Oh, Comely" by Neutral Milk Hotel. I may be telling you too much when I say that when I was pregnant with my daughter I used to listen to this song and openly sob. Yeeeah. But really, I think it has perfectly pegged a kind of frustrated, desolate-seeming sadness I've experienced more than a little in my life, from my teenage years up through the present. /end over-sharing.

Palinode: OPENING CREDITS: The first few seconds of the movie of my life won't even be a song: just a series of sound effects, whoosh-pop-slap-scream-sigh. Then we break into Talking Heads' "This Must Be The Place (Naive  Melody)". Why? Because why the hell not? I want to start my life off with a bouncy tune and the sharp blade of David Byrne's optimism.  You don't even know you're wounded until the knife is put away and the killer has left.

CLOSING CREDITS: I have no idea how I'm going to die, but I can only hope I'm riding a nuclear weapon into the heart of some nowhere city.  Therefore I choose Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" - not because I believe in a reunion of ego-bound souls in the white marble vaults of heaven, but because it'll make people laugh as they're heading for the exit.

BONUS TRACK: Harry Nilsson's 1968 "Everybody's Talkin'", best known as the opening song from the soundtrack of Midnight Cowboy.  Why? Because it's a great driving tune, and because the line "I'm going where the weather suits my clothes" is as good a recipe for happiness as any I've ever heard.

Amber:
Opening credits: Jawbox - "Cornflake Girl"
Honestly, I just love this song, this particular version of it, but there's some meaning there, too. "Cornflake Girl" was a pretty important song to me as a teen. Because I had a lot of trauma in my childhood, I had to grow up really fast. Cornflake Girl really spoke a lot to the feeling of not belonging, as well as the accompanying self-righteousness and loneliness that accompanies that sort of older-than-your-years solitude. But this version, if you ever get a chance to hear it, is just awesome. It's my ringtone, actually.

Closing credits: Radiohead - "Motion Picture Soundtrack"
Sounds like a total cop-out, I realize, but the moment I heard that song, before I knew what it was titled, it sounded to me like the song at the ending credits for a movie where someone died peacefully with a smile on their face. Since I will ostensibly die at the end of the movie about my life, this is the song I want to hear on my way out.

Additional song on the soundtrack:  Ani Difranco -"Swan Dive"
Simply beautiful lyrics that convey the all-consuming kind of love I tend to fall into.
They can call me crazy if I fail
All the chance I need
Is one-in-a-million
And they can call me brilliant
If I succeed
Gravity is nothing to me
moving at the speed of sound
I'm just going to get my feet wet
Until I drown

Jodi:
Opening Credits-It's My Life-Bon Jovi-b/c it's peepy.  And how else should you start a movie about your life?

Additional Song-The Way You Look Tonight.  Because it was my wedding song.  And my wedding has to be in the movie on my life right?

End credits-We live on Borrowed Time by Linda Lamont because I'm figuring the end of the movie of my life is also when I die?  And that song is so lie affirming and also the song I want played at my funereal.  Because we do live on borrowed time.  And when I got diagnosed with some pretty scary stuff I realized that it really doesn't matter, I could get run over by a bus tomorrow.  (Yeah, I'm happy.)

Kurt:
If I had to pick a song to open the story of my life as a movie it would be "Waiting Room" by Fugazi and this is the part where I do some big justification about how the swaying rhythm is intoxicating and the way the lyric counterpoints the slow-fast-slow sensibility of the song offers a clever metaphor for my life. But really the song just kicks all the ass and that's why I want it playing. For the closing song I want "Just What I Needed" by the Cars because it has the best opening guitar riff and i would want people to know who the gaffers and key grips were in the production of my life and not just their families. Other songs in my soundtrack would be "Ooh La La" by Faces because it's sentimental but mean to women. Just like me. Just kidding. (*slide whistle*)

Motherbumper: If they made a movie of my life (which I'm sure they will and if not a movie, at the very least something on A&E hosted by Bill Curtis) the theme song would be Cheap Trick's Surrender since it's the actual theme song of my childhood right down to putting those KISS records on.  Then during the movie, probably during my grand entrance to puberty, it would have to be Run-DMC's "It's Tricky". Mostly because my budding foray into adulthood was very tricky and pretty much an after-school special in the making.  As this riveting comedy-drama slash thriller closed, over the credits would be The Carpenter's "We've only just begun". Not only because The Carpenters Greatest Hits was the first eight-track I ever owned (yes, I'm that old) but also because Karen Carpenter was my first (in a long line of) drummer crush and she rocked my world.  No better way to finish it off than without an actual ending. I'm going to live forever dammit!

BHJ: I would have the scene open with the twangy beginning of The Velvet Underground's "Heroin" and my step brother smashing a turtle on the concrete in super slow motion. That pretty much sets the tone. The ending is tougher because I don't know how it ends. But I'm seeing me in a car after the huge resolution and I finally win at life. "Ocean Size" by Jane's Addiction comes on the radio and I'm mewling along with Perry at the beginning and right when he screams "THREE FOUR", a semi rams my car, screen goes black, and the credits roll while the song blares on, LOUD.

Lena: For opening credits I'm going to have to go with "Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder.  Not only was this my favorite song as a little girl, but my mom - a bonafide bra-burning hippy - danced with me to it after she gave birth.  It was sort of part of her "Birth Plan".

Over the closing credits?  Easy. "Outta Time" by Dana Parish.  On my darkest days, I play this song on a constant loop until I can breathe again.

Comments

[Eliz]

Fie, I say! I just typed out a great response to this and it seems my post disappeared. I'll go answer over on my blog. Great roundtable question this week!

[BaltimoreGal]

God, I wonder. I think Ricky Nelson's "Garden Party" has to be in there somewhere. Just because I was always the new kid and used to care what other people thought. Now, not so much. Plus it is the nicest way of saying "fuck you" I have ever seen, and I do try to be politely rude.

[BHJ]

Sweatpantz In Da Hood. MamaPop staff is so cool.

[ozma]

Gotta have some Mozart Requiem for the part where I die. Cause that shit's gonna be super dramatic and tragic.

During my high speed car chase phase? Mmmm. Let's see. The theme from Batman?

I'll have to go and think about this more.

But I definitely don't want any Doors playing. EVER. Even when I assassinate the rogue CIA operative in the jungle and the local people simultaneously sacrifice a water buffalo.