Difficult Music

Try, try, try to understand
We watched The Virgin Suicides last weekend. I rented it to check on what Sophia Coppola had done prior to Lost in Translation. I also wanted to see how she used music in the movie, because I’d owned the soundtrack album (by mellotron merchants Air) for a couple years.

The movie had its good points, but it wasn’t all that focused. I wasn’t sure who or what it was really about. It did have a lot of different components that were nicely done, including the music.

In addition to the expected Air tunes, a couple old Heart songs—“Magic Man” and “Crazy on You”—popped up at crucial moments to inject some mid-’70s ambience.

I get ribbed about “Crazy on You,” because I once admitted that I think it’s a sexy song. Well, it is. Early Heart carried off the mystic carnality of Led Zep pretty well. Both bands put the cock in cocksure while never shying away from a little soft-focus, dewy meadow wistfulness. Robert Plant was always the priapic love god with a limp wrist, while in the space of one verse in “Crazy on You” Ann Wilson goes from singing about being a willow last night in her dream to sounding like she’s about to bite her lover’s head clean off. It sounds strong and fierce and female, and if I can’t associate those qualities with sexiness, then I’d better sit down and rethink some things.

While we’re at it, the middle section in “Magic Man” where the guitar and mini moog trade licks is also quite boner inducing.