BackPlay Things | An alternative Oscar playlist
A list of songs, all picked from films that were nominated or picked up Oscars
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I’m going to take some liberties with this post here. The blog’s called Play Things right? So I can play anything I want? My playlist for today has no cricket, football, boxing, wrestling, or badminton. It’s got loads of incredible music and it started with someone pointing out to me this morning that a song from a Disney movie had won the best song at the Oscars this morning. I Youtubed the song. Bad move.
Don’t get me wrong, that song, Let Her Go, is a perfect Oscar winner—just like Titanic was the perfect movie to sweep the awards. You cannot imagine anything more tepid, more schmaltzy, and more cliched than Let Her Go.
I would not wish that kind of torture on you, so here’s an alternative list of songs, all picked from films that were nominated or picked up Oscars this morning, but these, for a change, are just over-the-top-out-of-this-world good.
Happy by Pharrell Williams (Despicable Me 2):
I’m not sure where in the movie this song occurs (because I haven’t seen it) but I am pretty sure that’s the high point of the film. Pharrell Williams is a beat magician—every song he touches is dancefloor gold, and this one is no exception. Get up and move!
Main Man by T Rex (Dallas Buyers Club):
We’ll wind the clock back (and keep winding as we go along) for a cult classic by the 70s British band. We’ll shake off that infectious happiness with a sad little song, but we’ll be sad in the most delicious of ways. Psychedelia, grunge, punk, folk, rock, it all gets mixed up here in a heady, punchy cocktail.
If I Needed You by The Broken Circle Breakdown Bluegrass Band (The Broken Circle Breakdown):
A Flemish movie on a bluegrass band? Man, and do they do it right! Is there an American movie on bluegrass this good? This Towne Van Zandt classic is covered in the film, which is all about the pure beauty of a tune; an old, lost world of harmonies; the ringing allure of guitars, banjos, and violins.
Driva Man by Alabama Shakes (12 Years a Slave):
Now it’s getting serious. That voice. It’s like being punched, over and over again, and you are unable to dodge the fist, it’s all happening too quick, or too slow, you don’t know which, but every time the punch lands, it feels good. It rocks you, but it doesn’t hurt, it’s just numbing and sweet.
The saxophone talks of a danegerous, lonely night, a noir night. The drums speak of chaingang rhythms. From somewhere dark and deep, a Miles Davis riff comes floating out, disappears again. Keep a movin’ with that plow/ Driva’ man’ll show you how.
Max Roach, the jazz pioneer who wrote this song, would have been proud.
Freight Train by Elizabeth Cotten (12 Years a Slave):
This is why music is magic. This is why music is a spiritual quest in the purest sense of the word. This is why music comes from somewhere beyond this world. This says, ‘You have been loved.’
In the film, Cotten’s song is covered by bluesman Gary Clarke Jr, but really, it’s impossible to see or hear beyond this.
This film won Best Documentary Feature, and it talks about the lives of some of the most prolific back-up singers, singers whose voices you hear on countless classics, but never think about again. The choral voices behind everyone from Aretha Franklin to Ray Charles, Michael Jackson to the Rolling Stones. The voices that urge you to show Just a little bit respect, or the ones who help you Get by with a little help from your friends, or the one raising the hair at the back your neck saying I tell you love, sister, it’s just a kiss away, it’s just a kiss away.
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