Tag: Barry Mann

Movie Music Monday – Christmas Vacation

The first sequel to National Lampoon’s vacation was a disappointment. National Lampoon’s European Vacation lacked a lot of what the first movie had. Honestly, it is hard to believe that a second sequel was given the green light. Thankfully, it was.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation opened in theaters on December 1, 1989. It opened at #2 at the box office (behind Back To the Future Part II). At the time of the film’s release, the film received mixed reviews. Over time, many have deemed it a Christmas classic.

The movie is based on John Hughes’ short story, “Christmas ’59”, published in National Lampoon. It tells the story of Clark Griswold’s efforts to have a good old-fashioned family Christmas. As with almost anything that happens to the Griswold’s, they take a hilarious turn for the worse. The movie was panned by critics when it was released, but over time it has reached Christmas “Classic” status.

Despite several popular songs being present in the film, no official soundtrack album was released. The musical Score for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was composed by Angelo Badalamenti. It is the only installment of the Vacation film series not to include Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road.” In its place is a song entitled “Christmas Vacation.”

The title song and opening credits are accompanied by an animated Santa Claus having various issues. This foreshadows the insanity that is part of the movie itself. The song’s music was written by Barry Mann (of Who Put the Bomp fame). The lyrics were written by Cynthia Weil. The song is performed by Mavis Staples, the last surviving member of the Staple Singers.

I asked some friends and asked them about Christmas Vacation. Each of them agreed that they would love to hear it on the radio. I couldn’t agree more. In the latest addition of Turntable Talk, there were a few songs picked that were never played on the radio. Each of those songs could easily be in a rotation. Maybe terrestrial radio would have issues, but it would work on many Sirius XM holiday channels.

Personally, I love it. It sounds festive and happy. I love Mavis’ vocal and the “Jing a ling” background singers. It is one of two songs from the movie I want to feature.

The other song that I love from the movie dates back to 1950. It is used in the scene where Clark is staring out the kitchen window daydreaming. He is envisioning all of the fun that will happen when he puts in a swimming pool.

The song, is Mele Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. It was written in 1949 by R. Alex Anderson. Anderson recalled the inspiration for writing the song:

“Well, I’ll tell ya, a stenographer in our office, this was just before Christmas, and we are all leaving (5 o’clock), and she was next to me and she said, “Mr. Anderson, how come there’s no Hawaiian Christmas songs?” She said, “they take all the hymns and they put Hawaiian words to the hymns, but there’s no original melody.” Well, that spurred me right away – I thought, “what a good idea!” I thought this over, and over a period of a few days this came into my head, put it down on paper, and I’ve been singing it ever since.”

Bing Crosby was a frequent visitor and golf partner of Anderson. Anderson played the song for Crosby, who liked it so much that he surprised him with the 1950 recording.

Grab your sunscreen and relax …

Movie Music Monday – An American Tale

We go back to 1986 for today’s movie – Steven Spielberg’s An American Tale.

In the movie, a family of mice from the Ukraine immigrates to the United States, but loses young Fievel along the way. One lonely night, Fievel (Phillip Glasser) and his sister Tanya (Betsy Cathcart), separated by a long distance, sing “Somewhere Out There” in the hopes of reuniting. Spielberg really thought that the song had the potential to be a pop hit. So he got birthday girl Linda Ronstadt (who turns 78 today) and James Ingram to sing the pop version. Their version is a romantic ballad about two separated lovers who take comfort in the fact they are looking out at the same starry sky. Spielberg was right – the song went to #2 on the charts.

Film composer James Horner teamed up with songwriting duo Barry Mann (Who Put the Bomp) & Cynthia Weil to write the tune. Weil said in a 2014 interview, “At that time, which was the mid-’80s, animation was kind of dead. And we thought that this film would barely be seen because it was about a Jewish mouse. And so, we just loved the script and we had the opportunity to work with Steven Spielberg because he was executive producer. And so, we felt very free in writing the songs for this movie because we thought no one would be listening.”

Peter Asher (of Peter and Gordon) produced the song and spoke in an interview about the challenges of the song. “She (Ronstadt) and James Ingram, when we did ‘Somewhere Out There,’ never actually were in the studio at the same time, which is more common now but was a bit less common then. And getting it all to fit together, matching their vibratos and the last note and stuff like that, which again in Pro Tools (a digital editing program) would be two seconds, took quite a while because I had two separate takes of each of them separately. But, for reasons I can’t quite remember, they weren’t in town at the same time.

So, yeah, duets, you’ve got to figure out who sings what and all those obvious challenges and get two great vocals that fit together, ideally at the same time, but often not. I think she and Aaron [Neville] were together at the same time on ‘Don’t Know Much,’ but certainly she and James Ingram on ‘Somewhere Out There’ were not.”

The music video for the song was directed, produced, and edited by Jeffrey Abelson. It was filmed in New York City and features Ronstadt and Ingram, in two separate rooms, sitting at their desks while drawing and coloring scenes from the film. They both look out the windows, in the same manner as Fievel and Tanya in it. Clips from the movie also appear throughout the video.

The song won two Grammy awards at the 1988 ceremony: Song of the Year and Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television. It was also nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, but lost to the Dirty Dancing hit, “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life.”

Happy Birthday, Linda!!!