Soundtrack Project

Memes always ask the question who would play you in the movie about your life?

I prefer to ask the question which songs would be on the soundtrack to the movie about your life?

The songs in this ongoing series would be good in any movie if appropriately placed. I've dreamed, in the past, of having the job where you get to decide which song goes where. I have a friend who does that now for a very popular show on NPR. Jealous. She has great taste in music.

For me, the songs don't have to have to be attached to a particular event to make my soundtrack. For example, the song below wouldn't necessarily be in the movie during the part of my high school life where I'm swooning over E (which is what I was doing when I was into this record); it could be during a montage of Jim and I walking the streets in CHGO, or playing frisbee on the beach, or frolicking with the kids, or whatever. It's definitely an action song.

The song is "Burn For You" by INXS, from their completely underrated 1984 classic The Swing. Most records from that period have withered and dated themselves; this record is 22 years old (!) and sounds fresh and potent and earnestly sexy and blunt. Michael Hutchence effectively channels Mick Jagger on this record but not in a he's-being-obvious-on-purpose kind of way; it's the subtleties - the way he sings with the women on this song reminds me, strangely, of the way Jagger sings with Carly Simon on "You're So Vain". It's totally effective and a little sad; this record was really INXS' creative apex.

This song would definitely be in the my autobiographical movie. It would be during the part, I think, where Jim and I are walking in downtown CHGO, record shopping, eating ice cream, trying on clothes, falling in love.