In the midst of world turmoil and the very real possibility that America's democracy is done thanks to Donald Trump, Inside The Rock Era brings you this music special as a brief respite. Let's continue with 10 more!
#150--"Fame" by Irene Cara (for the movie Fame--1980)
The multi-talented Irene Cara sang her breakthrough hit at #150* for the movie Fame, which she also starred in. Dean Pitchford wrote the lyrics with Michael Gore providing the music.
We mentioned that there are more songs from the 1980's in The Top 200* than any other decade--the year 1980 places 14 songs in our special, including this one. That's tied for the most with another year from the 80's--1984.
Cara played Coco Hernandez as Fame follows students at The High School of Performing Arts from their auditions through all four years at the school. Irene was joined by a cast including Eddie Barth, Lee Curreri as Bruno and Laura Dean.
In the movie, Bruno's father arrives at the dance school in his taxi and plays "Fame" from the car speakers, with students dancing on the streets of New York City.
Pitchford also wrote "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" for Melissa Manchester, "All The Man That I Need" (with Gore) for Whitney Houston and "After All" for Cher and Peter Cetera. Pitchford also wrote the screenplay for the movie Footloose and collaborated on the movie score.
Gore is the younger brother of singer Lesley Gore and also worked on the films Terms of Endearment (enjoying an AC hit under his own name with the movie theme), Pretty in Pink, Broadcast News and Defending Your Life.
Cara hit the Top 10 in many countries, including #1 in the U.K., Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium, while stopping at #3 in Australia and #4 in the U.S. The single sold over one million units in the U.K. alone.
"Fame" captured Best Original Song at both the Academy and Golden Globe Awards. A television series of the same name
also used Cara's song as its theme from 1982 to 1987.
The movie grossed $42 million worldwide and in 2023 was preserved at the National Film Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Baby look at me
And tell me what you see
You ain't seen the best of me yet
Give me time, I'll make you forget the rest
I've got more in me, and you can set it free
I can catch the moon in my hand
Don't you know who I am?
Remember my name
(Fame)
I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna learn how to fly (high)
I feel it coming together
People will see me and cry (fame)
I'm gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame (fame)
I'm gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name
Remember, remember, remember, remember
Remember, remember, remember, remember
Baby hold me tight
Cause you can make it right
You can shoot me straight to the top
Give me love and take all I got to give
Baby I'll be tough
Too much is not enough
I can ride your heart till it breaks
Ooh, I got what it takes
(Fame)
I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna learn how to fly (high)
I feel it coming together
People will see me and die (fame)
I'm gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame (fame)
I'm gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name
Remember, remember, remember, remember
Remember, remember, remember, remember
(Fame)
I'm gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame (fame)
I'm gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name
Remember, remember, remember, remember
Remember, remember, remember, remember
Remember my name
(Fame)
I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna learn how to fly (high)
I feel it coming together
People will see me and die (fame)
I'm gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame (fame)
#149--"Moon River" by Audrey Hepburn (for the movie Breakfast At Tiffany's--1961)
This classic was written by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini. Mancini was coming off of the composition of the Pink Panther theme and Mercer had just contributed songs from the movie White Christmas.
Mercer, who grew up in Savannah Georgia, had fond childhood memories of picking huckleberries there by the river and living life without a care. Johnny began the tune as "Blue River" about those Southern summer days and gently-flowing rivers, and inserting references to his "huckleberry friend" as an homage to Mark Twain's character Huckleberry Finn.
When Paramount Pictures hired Mercer and Mancini to write a song for the movie, Mercer adapted his lyrics to Mancini's melody. Upon discovering that there was already a song called "Blue River", he had to come up with a new one, and thus "Moon River" was born.
The song is a romantic yearning for a simpler life. The "Moon River" is a metaphor for a lover who is both a dream maker and a heartbreaker.
Paramount's president didn't like the song in the film and announced that they should remove it. Audrey Hepburn firmly told him that it would be over her dead body," according to The Telegraph.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is an odd but romantic comedy directed by Blake Edwards in which an extremely naive socialite, Holly Golightly (played by Hepburn) meets struggling writer Paul Varjak, played by George Peppard, who moves into her apartment building.
Several well-known actors, including Marilyn Monroe, Shirley MacLaine, Kim Novak, Steve McQueen, Jack Lemmon, and Robert Wagner, were considered for the lead roles before Hepburn and Peppard were cast.
Mancini was one of the giants of music as a composer, conductor, arranger and instrumentalist. He won 20 Grammy Awards, four Academy Awards and a Golden Globe for themes such as "'The Pink Panther Theme'", "Moon River", "The Baby Elephant Walk" "Love Theme From 'Romeo And Juliet'" and "The Days Of Wine And Roses" to name a few. Artists who have recorded his songs include Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Connie Francis, Andy Williams, Pat Boone, Paul Anka and Sarah Vaughan.
Hepburn's instincts were correct, as the sheet music sold over one million copies in its first printing and Mancini and Mercer were awarded the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1962. The song went on to win in both the prestigious Record of the Year and Song of the Year categories at the Grammy Awards.
"Moon River", the song that was almost dropped from the movie, has now been recorded over 500 times by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Andy Williams, who recorded the standard of it, and who sang the first eight bars during every opening of his television show.
In 2022, Williams' version of the song was chosen for preservation in the U.S. Library of Congress.
The city of Savannah renamed a river inlet Moon River in Mercer's honor.
There is a time in the film in which Holly is feeling down, so she pulls out a guitar, sits out on the fire escape outside her apartment, and sings "Moon River".
Breakfast at Tiffany's has grossed over $14 million.
#148--"Windmills Of Your Mind" by Sting (for the movie The Thomas Crown Affair--1999)
The original version of this song was written by the team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman with music from Michel Legrand. Actor Noel Harrison first recorded the song in 1968 for the movie The Thomas Crown Affair, which starred Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, and had risen to #15 in the U.K. when the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The award propelled the record to a Top 10 entry and it got as high as #8 two weeks later.
The most-famous version of the song was recorded by Dusty Springfield for her Atlantic Records album debut. That of course is not eligible for this special because it is not the version in the movie nor its soundtrack. In 1999, the film was given a makeover with Sting's superb remake of "Windmills Of Your Mind" heard over the movie's closing credits and it is that version which lands here.
Pierce Brosnan stars as Thomas Crown with Rene Russo as the insurance investigator, Catherine Banning.
The original version of The Thomas Crown Affair made $14 million, but as popular as that film was in its time, it pales in comparison to its classic remake in 1999. The '99 version pays homage to the original in several ways before taking it to a whole other level. It follows Crown, an eccentric billionaire who steals the Claude Monet painting of San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is pursued by Banning.
The onscreen chemistry between Brosnan and Russo is pure magic for the ages. Denis Leary also stars in his best film as New York Police Department Detective Michael McCann, whose department loosely works with Russo, though she clearly runs the show!
Dunaway appears in the modern version as well as Brosnan's therapist and her insights are so spot on that even Crown knows she has him figured out.
Dunaway began her career on Broadway, with her big screen debut in 1967 in The Happening, then played outlaw Bonnie Parker later in the year in Bonnie and Clyde, for which she earned her first Oscar nomination. Faye also starred in great movies like Little Big Man, Chinatown, The Towering Inferno, Three Days of the Condor and Network (earning Best Actress).
Music is critical to nearly any movie, and the soundtrack album to this one is one of the best out there. In addition to Sting's touch on "The Windmills Of Your Mind", it includes the amazing 10-minute "Sinnerman" from Nina Simone's 1965 album Pastel Blues, featured prominently throughout the movie, and incredible instrumentals from composer and conductor Bill Conti, especially "Glider" and "Never Change".
According to Laurence MacDonald in the 2013 book The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History, Conti was a ghostwriter for many of the Spaghetti Westerns. His score of the landmark movie Rocky in 1976 thrust Conti into the limelight worldwide. He scored nearly all of the Rocky films, as well as The Karate Kid, For Your Eyes Only and The Right Stuff, which latter for which earned him an Academy Award. Conti also wrote the themes to the television shows Dynasty, Falcon Crest and Cagney and Lacey.
The 1999 movie remake went on to gross $124 million at the box office and swept the actor categories at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, with Russo winning Favorite Actress, Brosnan Favorite Actor and Leary Favorite Supporting Actor.
#147-"On The Road Again" by Willie Nelson (for the movie Honeysuckle Rose--1980)
This song from Willie Nelson about life on tour was written after the executive producer for the movie Honeysuckle Rose talked to Nelson about writing it for the soundtrack. Nelson stars as an aging performer named Buck Bonham who is unable to achieve national fame and explores his relationship with his family, who are part of his band that travels around the United States for concerts.
Dyan Cannon, Amy Irving and Slim Pickens co-star with Nelson.
Nelson was primarily a Country artist, but was able to cross over with this one. He wrote his first song at the age of seven and joined his first band at ten. Willie worked as a disc jockey in Texas and at several radio stations in the Pacific Northwest in the 1950's. Willie wrote the holiday standard "Pretty Paper" and "Crazy" for Patsy Cline during this time.
Willie helped organize the first Farm Aid Concert in 1985, with proceeds going to American farmers. Those annual concerts continue to this day, with Nelson appearing at each one.
Cannon played small parts and was a guest on in many television series both in her early career as well as later in such shows as Gunsmoke, Have Gun - Will Travel, 77 Sunset Strip, Bat Masterson, The Detectives, The Untouchables, The Red Skelton Show, Medical Center and Beverly Hills, 90210.
She scored her first major success in the movie Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 1969, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She was fantastic in the classic 1978 movie Heaven Can Wait, earning Dyan a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Cannon earned a Best Actress nomination for Such Good Friends and also starred in Revenge of the Pink Panther and the great 1982 movie Deathtrap (with Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine), among many others. Cannon also starred in 17 episodes of Ally McBeal from 1997-2000
Before she became a star, Dyan was married to Cary Grant for three years. Cannon was reluctant to talk about the marriage after their divorce in 1968 and resisted publishing deals after Grant's death in 1986. She finally published her memoir Dear Cary in 2011, which became a bestseller.
"On The Road Again" reached #20 overall #7 on the Adult Contemporary chart while the soundtrack album stopped at #11. Nelson scored an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
Honeysuckle Rose grossed just under $18 million.
#146--I Don't Wanna' Fight" by Tina Turner (for the movie What's Love Got to Do with It--1993)
Tina Turner recorded this song, written by Lulu, Billie Lawrie and Steve DuBerry, for the autobiographical movie, What's Love Got to Do with It in 1993. The movie was adapted from Tina's 1986 autobiography I, Tina and stars Angela Bassett as Tina and Laurence Fishburne as her abusive husband Ike. Turner's song is one of 37 cinema songs from the 90's to make our countdown.
The movie follows Anna Mae Bullock (Turner's real name) from her childhood days in Nutbush, Tennessee to relocating to St. Louis, Missouri and reuniting with her mother and sister. While in St. Louis, Anna goes to a nightclub where she sees Ike performing with his band. Ike invites women out of the crowd nightly to sing onstage, and one night Anna finally got called. She impresses Ike so much that he offers to be her mentor and produce her music, which turns out to be both a blessing and a curse.
The recently-departed Turner was one of the most electrifying performers of all-time, giving Creedence Clearwater Revival's classic "Proud Mary" her "rough" treatment while with Ike and her brief performance as The Acid Queen in the 1975 movie Tommy is iconic. Long after their divorce in 1976, Tina accomplished one of the most stunning comebacks in music history, beginning with the great album Private Dancer, which included the Grammy-winning Record of the Year "What's Love Got To Do With It", "Better Be Good To Me", "Let's Stay Together" and the sultry title song.
Turner continued to enjoy great success with songs such as "We Don't Need Another Hero", "Typical Male", "It's Only Love" and "The Best". She ranked 28th in Inside The Rock Era's 2014 production of The Top 100 Female Artists of the Rock Era*.
Bassett has won two Golden Globe Awards and has been nominated for two Academy Awards. Her brilliant portrayal of Tina in the movie earned her the first Golden Globe, and Angela went on to star in Malcolm X, Waiting to Exhale, Music of the Heart, Black Panther and its sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 2022, which earned Bassett her second Golden Globe.
"I Don't Wanna' Fight" was a #1 hit in Canada that also reached #7 in the U.K. and #9 in the United States (#1 Adult Contemporary). The song earned a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television.
The movie grossed $61 million and earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for Bassett and Best Actor for Fishburne and a Golden Globe nomination for Bassett.
#145--"It's My Turn by Diana Ross (for the movie It's My Turn--1980)
Song #145*, written by Carole Bayer Sager and Michael Masser, is from Diana Ross for 1980 movie It's My Turn. The song plays during the film's final credits.
The movie stars Jill Clayburgh, Michael Douglas and Charles Grodin. Kate Gunzinger (played by Clayburgh) is a professor of mathematics at a Chicago, Illinois university who travels for a job interview in New York City and to attend the wedding of her widowed father. While there, she meets a former professional baseball player named Ben Lewin (the bride's son) played by Douglas and starts a romantic relationship with him.
Bayer Sager is another of the most-accomplished songwriters that some may not know. She wrote her first big hit, "A Groovy Kind Of Love" with Toni Wine for the Mindbenders while still a student at New York City's High School of Music and Art. Carole co-wrote "Midnight Blue" and "Come In From The Rain" (later wonderfully done by the Captain & Tennille) with Melissa Manchester and co-wrote "Don't Cry Out Loud", one of Manchester's biggest career hits.
With Marvin Hamlisch and Neil Simon, Bayer Sager wrote the lyrics for They're Playing Our Song, the 1978 stage musical loosely based on her relationship with Hamlisch which was a hit for three years on Broadway. Carole also wrote the lyrics for Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" and co-wrote "Arthur's Theme" for Christopher Cross, "That's What Friends Are For" (made famous by Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight), "On My Own" for Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle and "Heartlight" and "On The Way To The Sky" for Neil Diamond with her then-husband Burt Bacharach. Carole co-wrote "The Prayer" with David Foster, originally recorded by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, that has become a Christmas classic.
Bayer Sager has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards and six Academy Awards, winning two Golden Globes, a Grammy and an Oscar. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987.
The song jumped to #9 overall and #9 on the Adult Contemporary chart in the U.S.
The movie grossed $11 million at the box office.
outro
#144--"The Good, The Bad And The Ugly" by Ennio Morricone (for the movie The Good, The Bad and the Ugly--1966)
This next entry, one of The Top 100 Instrumentals of the Rock Era* for its popular remake by Hugo Montenegro), is from Ennio Morricone, who wrote music for hundreds of movies in the 1960's. The song plays at the beginning of the film The Good, The Bad and the Ugly from 1966.
Morricone and director Sergio Leone were classmates, and Leone first asked Ennio to compose the score for his movie A Fistful of Dollars. The collaboration continued on several movies in the next few years.
Clint Eastwood starred in the film as "The Good", with Lee Van Cleef as "The Bad" and Eli Wallach as "The Ugly". The three gunfighters compete to discover riches in a buried cache of Confederate gold during the American Civil War. Most of the filming took place in Spain.
Morricone played the trumpet in the 1940's in several Jazz bands, before ghost-writing for film and theatre. Among the many movies which featured his work are Days of Heaven, The Untouchables, La Cage aux Folles, The Bible: In the Beginning... and the 1998 version of Phantom of the Opera. Morricone won three Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards and three Grammy Awards,
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was the third and final movie in the Dollars Trilogy, following A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. It grossed $38 million worldwide and thrust Eastwood into stardom.
So popular was the theme song that the soundtrack rose to #4 in the United States and remained a bestseller for over a year. The movie score was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.
#143--"Jean" by Oliver (for the movie The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie--1969)
This Rod McKuen song was turned into a big hit by Oliver in 1969 for the movie The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The single was produced by Bob Crewe, who co-wrote most of the big hits for the Four Seasons. 1969 is one of the strongest years in music history, but "Jean" is the only movie song from that year to make our list.
The movie is adapted from the Muriel Spark novel of the same name. The book and movie are set in 1930's Edinburgh, Scotland as six 10-year-old girls are assigned to the classroom of Miss Jean Brodie, who describes herself as being "in her prime". Maggie Smith stars as Brodie in one of her early roles, and it won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Brodie has great ambitions about her teaching and specifically for these six girls, whom Brodie believes stands out as an elite group of students. But through one of the movie's flash-forward scenes, we learn that one of the girls will betray Brodie and ruin her teaching career, but that she will never learn which one.
Smith, who passed away on September 27 of last year at the age of 89, enjoyed an amazing career that lasted over seven decades. She began her acting career as a student at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952, before working for the British National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. Maggie excelled on Broadway, winning Best Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage in 1990.
On the big screen, Smith starred in movies such as California Suite, Othello, Travels with My Aunt, A Room with a View, Gosford Park, Death On The Nile, Sister Act, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films. Maggie also played Violet Crawley in the popular drama series Downton Abbey from 2010-2015.
Smith won three Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, four Emmy Awards and a Tony Award.
McKuen was an example of how one can overcome abuse and a troubled childhood to accomplish great things. His father left his mother at an early age, he was sexually and physically abused by relatives and with a violent alcoholic as a stepfather, McKuen ran away from home. He worked as a rodeo cowboy, lumberjack, stunt man, surveyor, railroad worker and radio disc jockey to support himself and always sent money to his mother.
With no formal education, McKuen began keeping a journal and wrote his first poetry and song lyrics. He eventually settled in San Francisco, where he read his poetry in Bay Area clubs. Rod began performing as a Folk singer at the famous Purple Onion. He soon signed a recording contract with Decca Records and released several albums in the late 1950's.
McKuen moved to France in the early 1960's and collaborated with singer Jacques Brel, including on the song "Le Moribond", which Rod translated into "Seasons In The Sun", one of The Top Songs of 1974* by Terry Jacks.
He began to publish books of poetry such as Stanyan Street & Other Sorrows, Listen to the Warm and Lonesome Cities, the latter of which won him a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording. McKuen has sold over 60 million books worldwide, according to the Associated Press.
McKuen has also written over 1,500 songs, with his songs performed by Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Perry Como, Johnny Cash, Andy Williams, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, The Boston Pops and many others.
"Jean" rocketed to #1 in Canada and reached #2 in the U.S. and New Zealand and earned an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song.
In 2005, Time magazine chose Spark's novel as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to that time.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie also scored Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Actress for Smith.
#142--"Kokomo" by the Beach Boys (for the movie Cocktail--1988)
The Beach Boys scored their biggest hit in 20 years with this one from the 1988 movie Cocktail, which stars Tom Cruise and Elizabeth Shue.
Written by John Phillips, Scott McKenzie, Mike Love and Terry Melcher, the song is about two lovers who travel to the mythical island of Kokomo, and also references real Caribbean islands such as Aruba, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Martinique and Montserrat.
The movie is about an aspiring business student (Brian Flanagan) played by Cruise who ends up tying his fortunes to a bartender played by Bryan Brown (Doug Coughlin), who teaches Flanagan the art of "flair bartending". Coughlin doesn't have Flanagan's best interests in mind, but Flanagan nonetheless drops out of business school to tend bar with Coughlin.
"Kokomo" jumped to #1 in the United States and Australia and #4 in Canada and the Netherlands and sold over one million copies. It was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and for a Grammy for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television.
Cocktail grossed $171 million.
#141--"Neutron Dance" by the Pointer Sisters (for the movie Beverly Hills Cop--1984)
This great Pointer Sisters toe-tapper was written by Ailee Willis and Danny Sembello and featured on the soundtrack of the 1984 movie Beverly Hills Cop. The song, one of 14 from the year 1984, is prominently featured during a key car chase sequence.
Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Lisa Eilbacher and Ronny Cox star in the movie. You'll remember Eilbacher as Casey Seegar from the classic movie An Officer and a Gentleman. Murphy is Axel F, a street-smart detective from Detroit, Michigan who travels to Beverly Hills, California to solve the murder of his best friend.
The Pointer Sisters were one of the top groups in the late 1970's and 80's, churning out 13 Top 20 hits. June and Bonnie Pointer began as a duo, joined by Anita and then Ruth in 1972. Bonnie left her sisters in 1977 to pursue a solo career ("Heaven Must Have Sent You"), as the group became a trio. The Pointers enjoyed success with "Fire", "Slow Hand", "He's So Shy", "Automatic", "Jump (For My Love)", "I'm So Excited" and "Neutron Dance".
The Pointer Sisters ranked #32 in our countdown of The Top 100 Female Artists of the Rock Era* in 2014.The group won three Grammy Awards and earned a star on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994.
"Neutron Dance" was one of four big hits for the group that year, which saw the group at their peak, with the song hitting #1 in Canada and #6 in the U.S.
Beverly Hills Cop was a big hit at the box office with a gross of $316 million.
We hope we've rekindled memories of your favorite cinema songs, and perhaps sparked an interest to see some of the movies contained in this special that you haven't had the privilege to see. Join us tomorrow for Part Seven!
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