Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Sometimes I Know Things about Obscure Music

I saw The Wolf of Wall Street the other day.  I was leery, because my father had previously said that he had found it tedious and because my previous, somewhat limited experience of Scorsese had not prepared me to look forward to a three-hour Scorsese movie.  As it happened, I hadn't realized it was a comedy and found that to be a pleasant surprise, and, in addition, I went to see it with friends who quite liked it, which led me to be positively inclined towards it as well.  It was very long, but I found my interest picking up again towards the end for the oddest reason - because of the soundtrack - and not even because it was playing songs I am particularly fond of but because it played, in two scenes directly in a row, one after the other, two songs that are related to songs I'm particularly fond of.  First, the original Italian version of "Gloria" - I had not known there was an original Italian version of "Gloria," but I had been aware of the English version as an influence on "Disco 2000" (it is a pretty clear influence, even if I like the latter better because Pulp).  And then, following on that immediately, right in the next scene,"Ça Plane Pour Moi", which for some complicated reason has the exact same backing track as "Jet Boy Jet Girl" (ummm. . . NSFW).  Considering that they're musically almost identical, I sometimes wonder if I prefer "Jet Boy Jet Girl" for purely purient reasons - I mean, it's awesome to be barely able to resist screaming out, "He gave me head," because the song is just stuck in your head so badly - but it is the one I heard first (on Internet radio).  At any rate, it's an amazingly catchy backing track, and when "Ca Plane Pour Moi" came on, nearly at the end of the three hour marathon, I started literally bouncing around and dancing in my seat, I was so excited.  Good musical choices, Scorsese, or whoever else is in charge of that.