Finding Favorite Songs in the Strangest PlacesI spend most of my work days trolling the internet, scavenging for new music to love. Between allmusic.com, Pitchfork Media, and the hundreds of blogs floating around out there, I find plenty of sources to keep me busy for the better part of an 8 hour day (ahem). But no matter how much time I spend seeking, there are always songs that manage to catch me by surprise when my guard is down. This rarely happens on the radio these days (with the exception of 89.3 The Current or the oldies station), but there are many other pop cultural nooks and crannies in which that New Favorite Song can hide.
This weekend I saw Steve Martin's classic comedy The Jerk for the first time. I had heard great things about it, of course, but I was still amazed by how laugh-out-loud hilarious it actually was. But the best part of all was that, in the midst of all the spastic slapstick and so-dumb-it's-funny dialogue, there was a very sweet, almost-earnest Love-Song-On-The-Beach scene. Had it been hammed up it could have just been throwaway camp, but Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters played it straight and it was as lovely as it was funny. The song is Billy Rose and Lee David's "Tonight You Belong To Me," and I can't imagine hearing another version of it that I like more. Steve Martin proves to be a proficient ukulele player, and the hushed, tender harmonizing between the two actors is downright twee. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil the ending (check the You Tube link below), but it is hilarious in the very sweetest of ways. I've re-watched this scene several times, and it is a revelation that you don't have to watch an "art comedy" to find a beautiful moment that can make you laugh.
1 comment:
we definitely dished about this over dinner tonight. great tune!
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