Movie Music with a Twist: "... Have you ever considered the musical misdirection of songs inspired by movies?".

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.
• Position: REEL WORLD

MOVIES never have been without music. Even in the silent era, large cities had orchestras accompanying these pioneering pictures (sometimes even with a sound effects person), while smaller towns and/or theaters had an assisting piano player.

For most of film's history, audiences have thought of cinema-related songs either as having been directly written for the picture or previous recorded numbers creatively reassembled for the story's soundtrack. Examples of the former would include Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer writing the haunting "Moon River" theme song for Blake Edwards' "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961). Audrey Hepbum's untrained voice rendition of the song is so apt for a small-town runaway to New York. Other tunes written directly for the screen are countless, from John Lennon's "Help" (1965), for the Beatles film of the same name, to Dolly Parton's "9 to 5," which also doubled as the 1980 title of the movie.

Previously recorded soundtrack songs illustrations immediately reveal my aging baby boomer roots. For instance, Dennis Hopper's "Easy Rider" (1969) strings together classic rock numbers, highlighted by its signature road song, Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild." Along the same lines, "The Big Chill" (1983) writer/director Lawrence Kasdan wanted the rock soundtrack to be evocative of the film's boomer college years. Kasdan's picks ranged from Motown to the Rolling Stones' eulogy to life, "You Can't Always Get What You Want," the perfect song for a 1960s crowd later brought together for a friend's funeral.

These musical samples help explain how one part of Hollywood sausage is made, as well as being examples of songs that continue to stand on their own. However, have you ever considered the musical misdirection of songs inspired by movies? These often come with backstories that can be quite different than the traditional movie music process.

To start, one might come back full circle to "Breakfast at Tiffany's." In 1993, the band Deep Blue Something released a song named after the movie. Their "Breakfast At Tiffany's" number was their only hit, but what a hit. It charted highly in top 100 record lists worldwide. Composer Todd Pipes was a Hepburn fan, and the song was inspired by 'Tiffany's" and the actress' 1953 "Roman Holiday," for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award.

The lyrics are about a naive young man about to lose his girlfriend. He employs their mutual love of the film to hopefully keep them together. However, the song stumbles upon an engaging...