Favourite Movie Songs VI: The Quickening

JERUSALEM: Privilege. Beautiful jangling mid-60s version of Anglican hymn set to Blake poem. Watkins' film, which improves on repeated viewing, posits the perceived fear of the British establishment that rock music would stir youth to toppling revolution. The rock star absorbed by the powers that be (a kind of pre-Bowie damaged idol) is played by real life rock star Paul Jones. The mix of documentary harshness, British TV hard edge and pop colour make this story of culture crush all the more poignant. This song appears at a rally somewhere between Nuremberg and religious revivalism. The band has been seen earlier doing a goofy version of Onward Christian Soldiers dressed as monks. Here they are in uniform and salute the crowd like Nazis. Sobering.

CUCURRUCUCU PALOMA: Talk To Her. Almodovar's tale of intertwined relationships and line crossing to the extent of the brink of death features this cool cooing spooky number sung by the man who made it a hit decades before but here delivered in a sparser arrangement which highlights the spaceiness of of the piece.

  
HOW DO: The Wicker Man. Britt Eckland sings this naked in her bed, thumping the wall like a drum while sawdust and porridge protestant celibate Edward Woodward all but gnaws his bedpost in resistance. He will find a kind of futility in his own virtue. Later covered by triphoppers-come-lately Sneaker Pimps, but beautifully. Lost of songs from this movie that isn't a musical. That's ok, though, is isn't a horror movie nor a hippy feelgood back to nature nor a ... you get the idea.

     
PUT THE BLAME ON MAME: Gilda. Sung by Gilda as realised with Geiger counter stressing radiance by Rita Hayworth, this ode to bad thrums under all the bad this apex-dwelling noir can deliver.

HOW LITTLE WE KNOW: To Have and Have Not.Lauren Bacall at nineteen. What the hell else do you want?