I love you, Pumpkin
I love you, Honey Bunny
An iconic movie quote. In an alternate universe, those lines would have come from some children’s animated film. Something like Winnie-the-Pooh or even Toy Story, perhaps. In our universe – one which includes writer/director Quentin Tarantino – these famous lines are said in a film that includes a washed up boxer wielding a samurai sword, an Old Testament quoting hitman, and a coffee appreciating cleaner. And so very, very much more.
Most people likely have a few movie soundtracks that they consider iconic. Pulp Fiction is one for me, and I am sure I am not alone. I remember my Dad purchasing it on Compact Disc after he had seen the movie in theatre. He brought the soundtrack home and immediately popped it in the ghetto blaster that resided in our kitchen.
I was 14 or 15 at the time, and I was transfixed from those first spoken lines and then the frenetic pace of the opening song – Misirilou. I listened to the soundtrack front to back numerous times before I ever watched the movie.
My parents – for good or ill – did not keep me from watching R rated movies – even well before I was a teenager. I remember watching Good Morning, Vietnam and Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon at home, with my parents, and thinking nothing of it. There were only movies I can recall being specifically told I could not view when I was an adolescent. One was Cocktail (by my mom. I am still not sure exactly why), and the other Natural Born Killers (by my dad. This one makes sense) – another film with Tarantino’s fingerprints all over it. I still haven’t seen Natural Born Killers at the age of 45, and I don’t feel like I am missing out. My mother’s directive was ultimately for naught, though: I spent much of my 20s bartending even without the direct influence of Tom Cruise.
When we were listening to the Pulp Fiction Soundtrack that first time in the kitchen back in 1994 or 1995, my dad described the scene that was most difficult for him to watch in the movie. There is plenty of difficult and gruesome material that could make people close their eyes or turn away in this film. For my dad, the hardest of them all was the one that involved a needle.
I don’t recall watching Pulp Fiction myself in full until two years or so later. By then, the movie poster was up on my bedroom wall and I knew all the songs and likely could have quoted the Royale With Cheese scene from memory.
There are many individual tableaus in the film that are both powerful and lasting. The music selected for each of these vignettes just add to the impact they leave on the viewer. Tarantino is one hell of a writer and directer. He can evoke a nostalgic memory you never even you knew you had with a perfectly selected music track.
There are so many songs that I – and pretty much everyone else – would not be aware of if it wasn’t for this album. Son of a Preacher Man was a hit, sure, and has become timeless in its own right. Perhaps the same can be said for Let’s Stay Together and Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon. But I never would have known about the great surfer tracks such as Misirilou, Bustin’ Surfboards, Bullwinkle Part II, Comanche, and Surf Rider if it wasn’t for Pulp Fiction. Those are just the instrumentals. The emotion evoked in Love Is A Red Dress, the pining for the old days style of Flowers On The Wall, and the full on funk of Jungle Boogie were entirely unknown to me as a teenager. I likely never would have discovered them if it weren’t for this soundtrack.
The audio from the actual movie scenes that act as interludes for the songs are equally iconic and lend the album an almost overabundance of personality. Personality goes a long way, of course. Sadly, those interstitials do keep me from playing the album at the shop. Some of them – especially Pumpkin And Honey Bunny and the bombastic finale of Samuel L. Jackson serenading you with an emotional reading of Ezekiel 25:17 – are not retail store friendly.
Regardless, this is one classic album.
Cheers,
Evan
Counting flowers on the wall, that don't bother me at all
Playing solitaire 'til dawn with a deck of fifty-one
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo
Now don't tell me I've nothing to do
BONUS VIEWING: Pulp Fiction (1994) John Travolta – Uma Thurman Dance Scene [HD] on YouTube