Songs That Should Be Films #6

Once more around the block. I'm in the final day before embarking on shooting a new film project. The actors and crew are on their way down to the location where I'm currently holed up, waiting and planning. And as we talk through the ways to make scenes, moments, images as simple and precise as possible, I keep thinking back to the most simple, precise and, therefore, complex and open-ended form. Songs. So back to my never ending list of songs that should be films, or could be films, or need to be films, or could form the backbone, the spine, the story, the emotion or the energy of a film. Of course films are an imperfect mess teetering on the edge of collapse so it's always more perfect to leave them as they are... but drawing something cinematic from these songs can only be a good thing.

"Hungry for a Holiday" - Album Leaf & Bright Eyes

"Never Be True" - Carla Thomas

"Monsoon" - And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (an epic apocalypse film somewhere between 'Take Shelter' and '2012', don't you reckon?)

"At Your Most Beautiful" - Last Days of April

"Across The Wire" - Calexico (a lyrical, romantic, grimy, fucked up Western with a scrappy young cast doing their finest work)

"Dirt" - The Stooges
"Apague Mi Mente" - Carla Morrison

"Do Now Fairly Well" - The Sea and Cake

"You Are A Casino" - Snowman

"Beast for Thee" - Superwolf
"I Can't Quit" - Devin The Dude (erratic stoner comedy with dozens of high profile star cameos)

"Doralee" - Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter

Songs that should be films #2

This posting should be titled songs that could be films... I would hate to think that these songs may only have come to being as little seen films and never been the achingly great songs that they are.

And, sheesh, okay, they'd mostly be intimate, fucked up, darkly romantic character dramas full of yearning, long nights and sweat but who can afford to make anything else... and I've never really heard a song that sounds like Avatar unless you count the meandering nonsense they play in health spas or something by Enya...

"You Came To Me Like A Cancer Lain Dormant Until It Blossomed Like A Rose" - My Disco
"The Way" - Bonnie "Prince" Billy
"Mistress" - Red House Painters (or the sweet, breakable version by Holly Throsby)
"Vapour Trail" - Ride
"Kangaroo" - Big Star
"Love's Gonna Get Cha (Material Love)" - Boogie Down Productions
"The Outer Banks" - The Album Leaf
"Monsoon" - ...and you will know us by the trail of dead
"Glamur" - Amiina
"Kreuzberg" - Bloc Party
"1969" - The Stooges
"We Could be Kings" - Gene
"Such Great Heights" - Iron and Wine (after Postal Service)