kid charlemagne
Well-known member
Bit of a cross post here between Music and Film, but Springsteen's Nebraska is one of my favorite albums of all time, a bare summation and culmination of his whole body of work up until that point. It is also an incredibly literary album, filled with songs like "State Trooper" and "My Father's House" that feel like short stories or spare scenes pulled right out of a film, then other tracks like "Highway Patrolman" and "Johnny 99" are entire lives and stories of their own nature. In his 1982 effort, Springsteen builds a world of characters out of himself and his own experiences, as well as people he knew, which isn't unique to his previous work, but what is striking and important to note here are the cinematic influences ingrained in this album. The title track that opens the album is an obvious tale based on Malick's "Badlands", but Springsteen also mentions taking great influence from Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter, and quoting from his Autobiography,
“My family, Dylan, Woody, Hank, the American gothic short stories of Flannery O’Connor, the noir novels of James M. Cain, the quiet violence of the films of Terrence Malick and the decayed fable of director Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter all guided my imagination. That and the flat, dead voice that drifted through my town on the nights I couldn’t sleep. The voice I heard when I’d wander in a three a.m. trance out onto the front porch of my home to feel the sticky heat and listen to streets silent but for the occasional grinding gears of tractor-trailers groaning like dinosaurs beneath the dust cloud, pulling up South Street to Route 33 and out of town. Then . . . quiet.”
He also compares his writing on a few tracks to how the film is from a kid's point of view, like the way he does on "Mansion on the Hill" and "Used Cars" and "My Father's House". As these thoughts run around my head I've been inspired to play this album while muting the film the next time I watch to see how it plays.
But with this thread, I was curious if anyone else here has any albums or songs they identify or signify with any films, in how they are similar thematically, sonically, or even visually.
“My family, Dylan, Woody, Hank, the American gothic short stories of Flannery O’Connor, the noir novels of James M. Cain, the quiet violence of the films of Terrence Malick and the decayed fable of director Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter all guided my imagination. That and the flat, dead voice that drifted through my town on the nights I couldn’t sleep. The voice I heard when I’d wander in a three a.m. trance out onto the front porch of my home to feel the sticky heat and listen to streets silent but for the occasional grinding gears of tractor-trailers groaning like dinosaurs beneath the dust cloud, pulling up South Street to Route 33 and out of town. Then . . . quiet.”
He also compares his writing on a few tracks to how the film is from a kid's point of view, like the way he does on "Mansion on the Hill" and "Used Cars" and "My Father's House". As these thoughts run around my head I've been inspired to play this album while muting the film the next time I watch to see how it plays.
But with this thread, I was curious if anyone else here has any albums or songs they identify or signify with any films, in how they are similar thematically, sonically, or even visually.
