The Comfort of Movie Soundtracks

In this essay episode, Luke Ferris explores the evocative power of film scores and why we find such deep resonance in the music that follows us long after the credits roll. Luke will examine how soundtracks allow us to rewatch movies in our minds and provide thematic connection beyond the screen.

We’ll dive into:

• A Mental Rewatch: Why listening to a score allows your mind to wander back into the mood, era, and story of a favorite film.
• The Soundtrack of Productivity: How ambient compilations—from Blade Runner to The Lord of the Rings—provide clarity and focus during study and work.
• Beyond the Script: Why a movie’s musical landscape is just as vital to the cinematic experience as the actors on the poster or the words on the page

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Sources for this episode:

• Royalty-free music and sound effects via Artlist.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friends, welcome to another episode of Least Important Things, a podcast about movies, friendship, and finding meaning in the most important of the least important things. I'm the creator and host, Luke Ferris, and thanks for being here. Welcome back for Friends of the Show, or welcome newcomers. Before I dive into another essay episode, I want to remind you to stay subscribed, connect with us on social media. We've got a special rewatch episode coming next week that you definitely don't want to miss. So you can find us wherever you listen to podcasts on YouTube where we're doing video versions of our episodes. Plus, if you like this episode or love the show and want to support the show, head on over to Patreon, become a member there. It's a great place to stay up to date with what we're doing. It doesn't get caught in the algorithms of social media, and it allows us to make more episodes like this one. You can find us there at patreon.com slash least important things. Okay, on with the episode. The first time I ever saw a MacBook Pro, I was probably 10 years old. And our best friends, the Feltons, were visiting us in Traver City, Michigan for a summer weekend. My friend's dad, who we still call Uncle Tom, worked in publishing and had brought his new massive 17-inch MacBook Pro that weighed about the same as a paver. I remember watching in awe the sleekness of the silver armor of the computer, the display monitor with the artistic icons. I watched over his shoulder as he showed me all the features of this Mac, including widgets that popped in the background that showed the time, date, calendar, news, and weather. I mean, wow. But the most jaw-dropping feature on this computer of the future was a little icon of a music note over a compact disc. The application was called iTunes. Uncle Tom opened up his library of music, all stored on this computer. He could switch from different albums and artists with a click of a button and even download music from this thing called the iTunes Store. Songs cost anywhere from 99 cents to 299 or 3.99 for new releases. But the good news was you could take your CDs, your CD collection, and place them into a disk drive in the Mac and import those into iTunes. Uncle Tom started playing some of the tracks for me. He and his sons are all expert musicians and music aficionados, and his library reflected that with an impressive diversity of music. A mixture of 1970s and 80s classic rock, jazz classical, 90s Christian music, and my personal favorite, movie soundtracks. From Saving Private Ryan to a perfect storm, from Horner to Williams, Uncle Tom had a glorious database of movie soundtracks. I remember when I would have sleepovers at their house growing up, I'd walk up the stairs from the basement, still bleary-eyed, and there was Uncle Tom's MacBook perched on the dining table, always blaring a theme from Lord of the Rings or Legends of the Fall. Even if he wasn't working on the laptop, the songs, music, and themes permeated the home. There's a comfort in movie soundtracks. I've always clung to their experience. For me, it's like watching the movie again in your head. I would sit back into my bed listening to soundtracks on my Walkman. I would be typically a recently burned CD from the Feltons' iTunes Library, and I would run through each track and try to match the scenes of my favorite movies to the tracks of the soundtrack. A Night's Tale, Empire Strikes Back, The Last Samurai, The Last of the Mohicans, Master and Commander. All these monumental movies in my cinematic childhood were expounded by the scores and soundtracks. The music of the movie can make a movie live beyond the credits. It can put you back into the mood of the story. It can allow your mind to wander and escape into a different world, era, or moment in the movie. It can even provide focus and clarity while you're working or studying. I actually have a YouTube playlist for deep work full of movie soundtrack related compilations, like Study with Paul Atreides, Doing Ambient Music for Deep Focus, A Pride and Prejudice playlist, Mr. Darcy has just proposed in the rain. Classical music, but you serve the empire, Relaxing Things, Stranger Things Ambiance, Shire Ambiance, and one I actually listened to while writing this essay. Blade Runner Blues, Rain Eight Hours. Speaking of Vangelis, the composer of Blade Runner, he created one of the most iconic movie sounds and songs and themes in the Chariots of Fire. He was a pioneer in synths and electronic music, and Chariots of Fire is one of my favorite movies, not because of really the story, it's the sound that he creates. You have this modern 80s synth soundtrack paired in a story about Olympic runners in the early part of the 20th century. It just shouldn't work, but it does. And what an Oscar for that. But you also have Blade Runner. His score of this movie still gives me this somber quietude. If it's raining outside, or if I have a work-from-home day, or if I'm just in kind of a mood. This Neo Noir story, and more importantly, soundtrack, is one I constantly have on, even this eight-hour loop one. Now it's no surprise to regular listeners and viewers that I have vinyl versions of movie soundtracks. You can listen to our Sorting Records episode to learn more about that. Here's a little bit of my sampling of my vinyl soundtracks. Uh Pride and Prejudice 20th Anniversary Sea Glass edition. The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions with Su George. Uh, all of his David Bovey covers from that delightful Wes Anderson movie starring Bill Murray. The sting soundtrack uh featuring the music from Scott Joplin, composed by Marvin Hamlish, one of my favorite movies, a great Chicago movie. We talk about it in the Chicago movie episode. Again, this is an opportunity where they were pulling from that era of music, and this soundtrack actually revitalized people getting excited about this era of music in the 20s. Empire Strikes Back. To me, the best of all the Star Wars scores, specifically the asteroid field is one I go back and back and back again. I just that has aged so well and uh is one of my favorite moments of the entire series. Uh, best of the Star Wars movies, best of the Star Wars soundtracks, no surprise. Shaft. I talked about this in our Walking Songs episode, but this theme composed by Isaac Hayes in this soundtrack is just gonna put you into a tone, a vibe. I don't like using the word vibe, but I think it's the best way to describe the soundtrack from Shaft the movie. Speaking of 80s, Beverly Hills Cop. Now, this is where you are collecting some of the best songs from this era. You have New Attitude, The Neutron Dance, Stir It Up, but then other songs like Axel F. So it's a great combination of modern music with a score. And then something that I'm trying to do is collect all the Bond soundtracks from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, mostly scored by the great John Barry. On His Majesty's Secret Service is probably one of my favorites, if not my favorite, out of all of his. On Her Majesty's Secret Service actually inspired the theme to The Incredibles, too. So uh this has lived on as a movie that people are going back to, but also a soundtrack that's being sourced, inspiring people. But I do love even the Roger Moore era themes. The Spy Who Loved Me is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, of the actual themes. Now, some of the songs are better, the Bond songs are better, but this actual whole theme of The Spy Who Loved Me is truly just like Bond, spy, everything you would want. I just felt like I wanted to share these with you, listeners and viewers. You can watch this on YouTube. Not really part of this essay, I just wanted to run through them really quick and do a little show and tell. But this obsession with soundtrack started young. The first CDs I ever bought with my own money were soundtracks to Napoleon Dynamite and Ocean's Eleven. I think a movie's soundtrack, either score or editorial curated, is just as important as who's on the movie poster or the script. I've talked about the music of movies constantly on the show. My episode on the noir genre and obsession with the third man theme, the driving songs episode featuring the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood soundtrack. Even in my description of the joy of Project Cale Mary in our previous episode, I have to give so much of my desire to watch the movie multiple times in theaters to the treat of listening to the score by Daniel Pemberton. But it's not even newer movies. Sometimes watching an old movie for the first time, part of the processing of that is listening to the score. I recently watched To Live and Die in LA, and I can't stop listening to the movie soundtrack composed by Wang Chung. It is so 80s, so bravado, so silly, but speaking of driving songs, I've just been playing into my car as I'm driving around as the spring suns hits me. I just feel like maybe I'm in LA driving around in that beautiful, opaque, smog-ridden orange sky from that movie. And I really think it's the music of that movie matching the environment of the visuals that has made me like the movie more and more, even though I haven't re-watched it at all. It's just simmering and simmering in my mind because of the score. The music of a movie is part of why the reason movies and sometimes TV are so powerful. It's why most local orchestras' most popular performances are pop nights when there's a live orchestra playing the soundtrack of a showing of a Harry Potter movie or Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. We attach these intricate musical experiences to these powerful visual moments. We do it subconsciously and instinctively. And it's why, when it comes down to it, images and sound are what movies are all about. And with soundtracks, we can return to the images and how they made us feel at the double click of a MacBook trackpad. Please stay connected, and we'll talk to you next time on Least Important Things.