Music For The Soul

I wrote a review on the film Frances Ha the other day for a website I contribute to. In doing so, I found a common thread with movies and their soundtracks determining their overall worth. I didn't do it alone - I have a friend from Canada who I met whilst living in Paris and she's always up late with her mind churning out short, sweet and to the point sentences just when I need them. She said:

...people don't talk about the importance of soundtracks enough.

I had noted in the review that the soundtrack to this film was definitely a hit. The song "Modern Love" by David Bowie plays in the trailer, initially convincing me to go see the film on a bleak rainy Sunday in a small cinema somewhere hidden in Paris' maze of streets. 

People don't talk about the importance of music enough, I will add. Without it, cafés are buzzing with mindless chatter and the scratching of chairs on the floor and clatter of forks on plates and the screeching of the coffee grinder. And I think, sometimes, that those sounds are nice. That they distract me from thought. But mostly, it's annoying, it triggers my anxiety, and it's not what I came to a café to experience. 

So the music drowns most of that nails-on-blackboard background noise. It sets a scene, connects us with old memories and allows us to create new ones. The Amity Affliction's cover of Born To Die reminds me of dreading having to get up and face reality after a really nice sleep beforehand. (It was forced upon me again this morning and yes I hate you. Not really.) Frank Ocean's Lost played on my iPhone as I flew out of Sydney without plans or a care in the world with my starting destination being Paris. Return of the Mack reminds me of nights out with Germans grinding and bopping to some hectic beats in the underground bars of the city. John Mayer's Gravity is a song that I'm sure a multitude of people have got all steamy and made love to (not all together/at the same time... I mean, come on...). 

Music is an image for the mind. It's a reminder, a little nudge to moments past. It's a way of summing up an entire experience. It's like a .zip file that, when uncompressed, throws a behemoth amount of information at you. 

So go - listen out for music in films - listen to how they may change experiences or define them for you. Allow music to determine your mind's inner workings, to recreate moments - to inspire them. To inspire you.