Well, party people, I warned you if I didn’t have a Tunes suggestion I’d resort to the Pretty in Pink soundtrack and away we go. Ok, so not just the soundtrack, but I’ll get into that in a minute.
Pretty in Pink just about defined my life after 1986 and I spent the better part of my teens looking for the Blaine to my Andie, but that just wasn’t to be. I can’t sew a prom dress, have no friends named Duckie, and I’ve never met Andrew McCarthy. Guess what? I don’t live in a movie and they need to have a caution statement at the beginning of teen romance movies. The soundtrack is, I suppose, what turned me onto New Wave, as the kids called it back in the day. It starts off with “If You Leave” by OMD, which really should be the last song on the album if you ask me. It’s a classic, the prom scene song. Next is “Left of Center” by Suzanne Vega of “My Name is Luka” fame. “Left of Center” is probably the biggest outsider sond I’ve ever heard, with the lyric, “and if they ask me ‘what are you looking at?’ / I’ll always answer ‘nothing much, not much’ / I think they know that I’m looking at them /I think they must think I must be out of touch” — that’s written by someone who was not asked to prom, I can almost promise you. INXS, New Order, Jesse Johnson, and Belouis Some are all on the soundtrack and Psychedelic Furs’ “Pretty in Pink” is there, of course. It’s a great song, originally recorded in 1981. The song came before the movie, and in 1986, they band re-recorded a version of “Pretty in Pink” for the soundtrack of the film, which became their biggest hit ever in the UK .
The two stand-outs for me on the album are “Bring on the Dancing Horses” by Echo & the Bunnymen and “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” by the smiths. I’m posting a YouTube video of the smiths, so you can hear “Please Please Please–,” it’s a beautiful, somber song sung by Morrissey and company. Short song, less than two minutes, but packed with melancholy desperation with the lyric: “Please please please let me get what I want, Lord knows it would be the first time.” And if the tune sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve heard the instrumental version by The Dream Academy in the museum scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The 80’s were good times.
It’s a CD I can’t live without, really. In 1986, I had the cassette tape, wore it out. Bought another one, loaned it to a friend, never got it back. Bought the CD probably at the end of high school, like a fool, loaned it to another friends, never got it back. Bought the CD again in college and have had that copy for 12+ years, and no, you can’t borrow it. I love you the best, but go get your own copy. I’ve also had bunches of copies of the movie, I think I have two now — one being purchased in Canada with a French language track, so if I want to relearn French…
The only problem I have with the soundtrack is that it’s missing the band Molly Ringwald asked John Hughes (director) to audition, the Rave-Ups. The Rave-Ups were the bomb. You saw them as one of the bar bands in the movie, singing “Rave Up/Shut Up” and “Positively Lost Me.” Love that. It’s only available now on a Rhino Records 80’s compilation CD that I can’t believe I don’t have. And it’s not on iTunes. Oh, and in Sixteen Candles, Molly Ringwald has the Rave-Ups written on her binder as she’s walking in the school hallway. How’s that for movie trivia? And I know all that from the useless knowledge in my brain, or as call it, Kerripedia. The Rave-Ups never were really played on anything but college radio, so they’re lost on most everybody. I had one of their albums, Chance, at one time and it was good. Here’s “Positively Lost Me” from YouTube.
That song is superfantastic. It’s obviously a break-up song, but I love the list of what the girl’s lost, including honesty, dreams, and his confidence. Good stuff. I’ll end it there. I’m an 80’s geek, what can I say? And I’d bet big money I would beat you at Trivial Pursuit because all my life all of my pursuits have been trivial ones.
That’s it. I’m off like a dirty shirt.
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