The Thirty Songs Tag -- Part One

McKayla tagged me with the Thirty Songs Tag at her blog Tales of a Triple Threat.  Thanks, McKayla!  I love music, so this is definitely geared to me :-)  McKayla answered all the questions with songs from musicals, and I thought putting a twist on it like that was a really fun idea, so I'm going to answer with all songs from movie scores!

However, thirty songs is a LOT of songs, so I'm splitting this post in half.  I'll have the second part up soon! 

I'm linking to all these songs on YouTube.  I'm also working on putting together a playlist with all 30 of my answers, so I'll provide a link to that when I finish the tag off in a day or two!

1. Your Favorite Song? 

My favorite track on the soundtrack for my favorite movie ever, The Man from Snowy River (1982), is "Jim Brings in the Brumbies" by Bruce Rowland.  Listen here.  It has wonderful energy and makes me so bouncy and happy.

Random thing about that soundtrack -- I took a copy along to the birth centers with me when I was in labor with all three kids, along with a lot of other music.  Though I did listen to other music while in labor, that's the album that was on when I gave birth all three times.

2. Your Least-Favorite Song?

The huffing-and-puffing songs in Daniel Pemberton's score for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017).  They make me start to hyperventilate when I'm listening to the CD, though I'm okay with them when watching the movie.  They're cool, except for the huffing and puffing.  Listen to one of them here.  I really like the montage in the movie that this goes with, I just have to skip the track on the CD.

3. A Song That Makes You Happy? 

I cannot listen to "Take You Down" from the Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) score by Daniel Pemberton without being completely bouncy and happy.  I am grinning right now, just thinking about it.  It's from the coolest part of the movie, and it's such a good song, especially around 1:19 when it really gets going.  Listen here.

4. A Song That Makes You Sad? 

Sarah MacLachlan's song "When She Loved Me" from Randy Newman's score for Toy Story 2 (1999) makes me cry.  You can listen to it here, but I'm not going to.

5. A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty?

Not quite sure what this is supposed to mean?  Like, a guilty pleasure, a song I think I shouldn't like?  Or a song that reminds me of something I've done wrong?  I'm going with the former, a song that I kind of like against my better taste.  I really like Daniel Pemberton's score for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) even though it's very weird.  Especially "The Devil and the Huntsman," which is so bizarre, yet gets under my skin and fascinates me.  Listen here.

6. A Song That You Often Get Stuck in Your Head? 

It's mostly songs with repetitive lyrics that get stuck in my head, like "Guinevere" from the 1967 movie version of the musical Camelot by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.  Listen here.

Note:  I attach a lot of memories to music.  It's one reason I gravitate toward soundtracks for movies I like, not just soundtracks in general -- listening to the music from a movie that I like and know pretty well will call images from that movie to my mind, and I love that.  I also associate songs very strongly with times or places when I listened to them a lot.

So these three "reminds you of" questions were kind of tough for me, in that I had to narrow it down to one for each of them!  And I have scads of songs that remind me of a person, place, or event.  But I have done my best.

7. A Song That Reminds You of Someone? 

"Clancy's Theme" by Bruce Rowland from The Man from Snowy River (1982) reminds me of my mom because she likes Clancy (Jack Thompson) best from that movie.  She always perked up when we came to the bit in the film when he hums this little tune.  Listen here.

8. A Song That Reminds You of Someplace? 

The whole soundtrack for Anastasia (1997) reminds me of college because my roommates and I would listen to it a LOT, but the song "Journey to the Past" reminds me particularly of my friend Kelly V., who invited me home with her for Thanksgiving one year, and that's when I first saw Anastasia.  It was my freshman year of college, and I was pretty homesick, and that song made me really miss my family.  So the soundtrack mostly reminds me of college, but that one song reminds me of a somewhat melancholy Thanksgiving at a friend's grandparents' house.  Listen here.

9. A Song That Reminds You of a Certain Event? 

Maybe this isn't an event, exactly, but three tracks from Patrick Doyle's score for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) always make me think of writing the Combat! fanfiction story "Ashes, Ashes."  That's because I listened to those three tracks a LOT while writing it.  A LOT, I tell you.  In fact, when I rewatched the movie a few years later, and I was like, "Why do I keep having Dana Andrews and Vic Morrow pop into my brain?"  Took me a while to realize it was the music triggering me remembering writing that story, which I had Dana Andrews "guest star" in, and which heavily featured Vic Morrow's character from Combat!.  The most powerful track for reminding me of writing that story is the one called "Voldemort" because I wrote the big fight scene at the end while listening to very little else.  Listen here.

10. A Song You Know All the Words to? 

Um, I know all the words to hundreds of songs.  Hundreds and hundreds.  Not even kidding.  I love to memorize lyrics, and I'm very fond of "patter songs," with their super-complicated lyrics and snappy tempo.  I really love to sing both Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron's parts for "The Other Side" from The Greatest Showman (2017) score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, which definitely has a patter-song vibe.  Listen here.

11. A Song You Could Dance to? 

I love to dance to the songs from That Thing You Do! (1996), written by Howard Shore, especially the title song, "That Thing You Do."  Listen here.

12. A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep? 

I don't like music that makes me fall asleep.  I can't even think of any movie soundtracks that I own that make me sleepy.  Just not my jam.  Instead, I will answer "Machine Gun Lullaby," a song I adore from Ennio Morricone's score for The Untouchables (1987).  Listen here.

13. A Song From Your Favorite Band? 

Instead of band, let's say film composer.  My favorite film composer is Elmer Bernstein, and I particularly love his theme song for The Sons of Katie Elder (1965).  Listen here.

14. A Song From A Band You Hate? 

Not sure I actually hate any specific film composers, but I really didn't care for the music by Martin Phipps for the 2007 BBC adaptation of Persuasion.  Listen here to the main theme, which is a pretty good example of all the music.  It's so aimless.  Drives me nuts.  I really don't like music that doesn't go anywhere.

15. A Song Nobody Would Expect You to Love? 

People don't expect me to like Metal or Rock, so the fact that I like the soundtrack for The Scorpion King (2002) would probably shock a lot of folks.  Listen here to "I Stand Alone" by Godsmack, which I very much dig.

Tune back in for the rest of my answers later this week!