Sam Phillips was the composer for Gilmore Girls (she’s the voice of the “la la” filler that runs throughout the series). But Phillips says that she wasn’t the one who chose her song for a pivotal point in the series, that was creator Amy Sherman-Palidno’s choice.
But it’s a perfect choice for the scene in question and it comes back a few other times in the series. I probably would have liked this song anyway, had I encountered it outside the series, but it will probably always elicit an “awwww” because of the way it was used in the series.
The song “Forever Young” came into my life in the spring of 1991, when I was a sophomore in high school, and the seniors were getting ready to wrap up and head off into their futures. I first heard the Alphaville version, and it seemed like a kind of timeless song. With several decades of hindsight, I can tell it wasn’t a terribly old song. It screams early 80s. The internet tells me it’s from 1984.
But it’s the kind of song that does well with covers and I enjoyed both versions that Peggy LaPoint played. And you can listen to them too!
I enjoy when the Sunday Brunch playlist doesn’t have an album cover for the song playing. Hip and obscure.
God bless movie soundtracks for introducing me to new songs and also making up an important chunk of my formative years. (Ahem Footloose,Pretty Woman.)
Here are three songs I’ve recently discovered thanks to movies watched. Let’s take them in reverse order.
One of the things I hated about what was called oldies radio in the 80s and early 90s, was that they played the same five (or three, or one) song by artists over and over again. So unless my parents had albums or 45s (they mostly didn’t), I didn’t hear anything else by those artists. Thus, there are large gaps with many artists, even with Elvis. I didn’t hear “A Little Less Conversation” until the Ocean’s 11 franchise, and I didn’t hear “In the Ghetto” until someone sang it at my 40th birthday karaoke party. “Suspicious Minds” may have been floating around, but didn’t really come to me until I watched Intolerable Cruelty.
Which means I didn’t hear “If I Can Dream” until just last night, when I watched the Elvis movie. It has lyrics that are so heartfelt they tip slightly over to cheesy (a plus) and a great big sound that builds and builds.
“Life’s Adventures,” by Tim Myers was from the Kissing Booth 3, which I finally got around to watching on Friday. The soundtrack also features Bright Eyes’s “First Day of My Life,” which is a favorite of mine and has appeared on this blog before.
This song is relaxingly sweet.
According to the comments on YouTube, I’m not the only person who found this song via Along for the Ride the Netflix movie based on a Sarah Dessin novel. It’s a good song for a transition point in the movie and a positive song overall.
Don Henley’s album The End of the Innocence is one that takes me right back to high school, which is interesting, since it was released on June 27, 1989 and I was more than a year away from being in high school. I think it’s because when I was in high school I heard a cover of “The End of the Innocence” (the song) at the Western Idaho State Fair and it struck a chord.
Regardless, this was a successful enough album that at least three songs, “Innocence,” “The Heart of the Matter” and “The Last Worthless Evening” were in fairly heavy rotation for years. They seem to have fallen out of rotation in the last decade or so, at least where I access songs.
So it was nice to hear this on KINK Sunday Brunch.
YouTube isn’t coughing up an official video, so here’s this one:
