Life Soundtrack
Do you own any movie soundtracks? My family used to thoroughly enjoy listening to the Footloose soundtrack on family vacations (I'm enjoying it right now, as well). As a side note, the enlightenment of John Lithgow's character in Footloose is enough to bring one to tears. God Bless America.
Anyway, back in 2004 I saw the movie Garden State and was struck by what came across as a perfect marriage between story line and soundtrack. I thought to myself, "why don't I have a soundtrack?" My task was set. Over the succeeding months I set about selecting songs that spoke to me as challenges, encouraged me, or that were my favorite at the time. The result was a set of songs that encouraged, challenged, and kept me pretty much satisfied throughout my travels. Now, unfortunately, I've yet to figure out how I can get my soundtrack to play at the proper times, such as pregnant pauses in conversations and while running through airports to catch planes. Such an option would be handy for others (and for me, as well) to know just what mood I'm in. I might need to hire a guy to do that someday.
Why am I mentioning this now, you might ask. Well, I've discovered the obvious: sequels to all non-trilogesque movies must have their own soundtrack. Sure, they can share a song or two, but the bulk of the tracks will change because the people have changed. Heck, you can even still like the soundtrack to the first movie, but the subsequent movies have different story lines, different characters, and different lessons; and is therefore deserving of its own music. So, I'm back to the drawing board.
So, off with Dave Matthews' "Ants Marching", and bring on R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", but not R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion".
What's on your soundtrack?
