Soundtrack Challenge #2: Songs To Be A Spy To
No Adele, Billie Eilish or Shirley Bassey
Full disclosure: I hate spy films.
They just never resonated with me as a kid. I found them dull and uninteresting.
There was always a guy in a tux who always ordered the same drink. He was fond of repeating his name, but I can’t remember what it was.
He was too smooth. Superslick.
Greasy.
He’d have run ins with some insane bad guys — like a butler with a metal plate in his hat. A guy with a crazy mouth full of metal teeth and bad hair. A Russian lady with shoe-knives that popped out when she kicked at people.
There was an old guy who had cool stuff like watches that shot cobras out of them, or a coat hanger that you could turn into a portable sniper’s tower.
The things he showed the guy in the tux were always useful at some point in the movie. Usually when you and (he) had forgotten he even had it.
He’d kill the bad guys and start making kissy faces at a lady, who was either another spy sent to kill him, or the girlfriend of the bad guy, who conveniently only decided he was no good for her near to the end of the film.
Spy films suck. Formulaic trash for kids and men who wished they were the guy in the tux.
I wanted to be He-Man.
I don’t even know how I know all that stuff about what happens in a spy movie. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever watched a whole one through.
I was often done by the end of the titles. Usually a silhouette of a lady dancing that made me feel a little bit funny.
Maybe it was some kind of Pavlovian response, as the music and dancing always came hand in hand, but often the songs stayed with me. They were very different — but always had elements — sequences of notes (is motifs the right word?) that made me go — ah, this is a spy film. I’ll be off then.
Right after the titles…
So — here are 4 songs that always make me think, in another time or place, they could have soundtracked some crazy spy stuff— like covertly following someone. Or taking out a bad guy from behind. Or having a drink at a bar with a lady who looked like she wanted to kill you.
Have a listen and then come and argue with me in the comments!
I love that bit.
Pulp — I Spy
Maybe it’s the title, maybe it’s the jaunty up-tempo rhythm. Maybe it’s the idea that in another universe, Pulp’s frontman Jarvis Cocker could easily have played the spy in the tux — (ah come on, what was his name?)
Awkward, gangly, unconventionally attractive. As Northern as they come. He was everything that slick posh spy guy wasn’t. It would have to be the most messed up universe — but I’d love to see it.
Portishead — Sour Times
Somehow, this glorious film noir in musical form is 30 years old and still sounds like it came from the future. Beautiful, haunting, and filled with jingly jangly spy tune guitar motifs.
You could definitely track someone delivering a dodgy package from a phone box with this in your ears.
Massive Attack — Angel
This is for a spy thing that goes horribly wrong. Maybe someone you were supposed to protect dies. Maybe the world-ending virus just made its way into the wrong hands.
Maybe you’ve just discovered your spy pal from childhood is really the Hank Scorpio super-villain and now you’ve been exiled from your team.
This is definitely “second act’s gone tits up” music. But it’s unreal. The humming pressure builds and builds. Until it explodes.
Muse — Feeling Good
My submission for this challenge is this big, noisy rock take on an old classic. You could definitely swan around thinking a spy film with you as the lead was about to start after listening to this.
It’s got next-level big ballad spy swagger. And a lady dancing in silhouette in the music video to top it off.
Oh wait, not in the music video. I meant in my mind.
Thanks for reading (or listening)!
Come and tell me I’m wrong in the comments — what would you have picked instead?
Let me know so I can laugh in the face of your choices!
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What about Spy kids?
It's also a spy movie but by kids.
Have you seen it? What do you think of that one?