“I’m curious to know exactly how you are
I keep my distance but that distance is too far
It reassures me just to know that you’re okay
But I don’t want you to go on needing me this way”
Lately I’ve been finding great material for TBTV on soundtracks. In a sense, the soundtrack functions a lot like a blog: someone, the musical director or whoever, was moved by a dozen or so tracks and decided to share them with the world. After hearing a song for the first time in a movie, it’s often hard to dissociate its meaning from the context of the story. If you’ve seen Reservoir Dogs, you’ll know that it’s not humanly possible to dismiss images of severed ears when “Stuck in the Middle with You” comes on the radio. Soundtracks are underrated — if you think an iTunes “Deep Cuts” playlist is going to help you become musically literate, reconsider your sources.
I first heard this Hüsker Dü track in Adventureland, Greg Mottola’s 80s throwback flick about a recent college grad forced to work at an amusement park during his summer. For good reason, I share similar sentiment to most about music produced in my birth decade — my radio station of choice in Toronto even has an annual feature called “The 80s Music That Doesn’t Suck Classic Rock Weekend.” And yes, every so often I come across 80s music that doesn’t suck (see The Pixies). It’s not that “Dont Want to Know If You Are Lonely” isn’t typical of the 80s sound, it’s that it contains musical features which didn’t hit a dead end after the 80s: this sort of sound eventually morphed into alternative rock of the early 90s. In the movie, the protagonist and his later-to-be girl head-bob to the song while driving with the windows down… and that’s exact what this is: a carefree, don’t-give-a-fuck sort of track.
You want some real “Deep Cuts”? Listen to Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade — it’s been described by Rolling Stone as the Quadrophenia of thrash.
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