Liner Notes

It's quarter past two in the morning, and I'm watching High Fidelity. I've got the deev paused at the bit (0:25:45) where Rob's just come home from the Marie De Salle show and puts her CD in the player, and you can see the track listing on the disc for a split second or so.

The song selection is funny, because they've stuck the two songs of Marie's that get a mention in the movie as the first two tracks, and the rest of the CD is filled up with covers, a couple of which I can't imagine being performed by an acoustic guitar, some terrible ones and a few that are laughable.

Rob's view on the Frampton song she sings, "Baby I Love Your Way" - that he "always hated this song... I kinda like it now" - must ring true for track 9, which is (sick bucket at the ready) "My Heart Will Go On". Ew. There is also "I Will Survive" and "Beat It", which are pretty good songs but it just seems like they needed a CD and filled the CD out with favourite tracks of the filmmakers. Or something. Of course, Marie De Salle might just write songs with titles similar to time-tested classics, you may argue.... until you get to "Ghostbusters" and "Mmm Bop". I'd rather listen to Marie De Salle's rendition of the Hansen song than imagine a world where another song called "Mmm Bop" exists.

And the producers must be glad you only get a freeze-frame look at the track listing. I have no idea whether this is a real song or just a made-up name once they ran out of time-tested classics (tbh the latter seems unlikely in a film about music). Obviously there is no maliciousness intended as the movie was made in 1999, but track 6 is called "911 is a Joke". Yeah. Nice one.

And yes I know I've just made a rant about a split second worth of film (if I write this much about so little time imagine how much I'd write if I was to review the entire film) but I'm wide awake when I want to be asleep and I wanted to make another post to this blog before the last one became a month old.

Ciao for now.

STOP PRESS! Shocking new development. I had said that the first two tracks were the ones that are mentioned in the film, namely "Baby I Love Your Way" and "Patsy Cline Times Two". But in actual fact, it's not Patsy Cline, it's actually "Eartha Kitt Times Two" that gets mentioned, despite it being Patsy Cline on the CD. I can't remember if it's Patsy Cline in the book or not, but I deemed it not quite boring enough to ignore.

Also, I wish I had Cusack's hair from this movie. God, it's awesome.

Ciao for now, really.

(Unless I discover Dave Grohl is the drummer in Sonic Death Monkey or something...)