Greetings, again.
I've been distracted all day and just want to write a bit to get the cobwebs out and flex the mental muscle. No easy way around this, I need to write just for writing's sake today. An appropriately self indulgent and shameful endeavor for the subject. What could be so strange and unusual a concept as to warrant such honest self abuse?
Cyndi Lauper, of course.
The Goonies R' Good Enough, of course.
I love The Goonies, the quintessential 80s adventure movie all about a group of misfit kids who, in a last ditch attempt to save their neighborhood, explore the caves under Astoria, OR and go looking for buried treasure. It's one of those films that benefits from the nostalgic tinge of rose colored lenses, but I still adore it despite, or perhaps even because of, its flaws. Today's article, though, is not so much about the movie itself but a bit of incidental/soundtrack music derived from it.
In a scene early on in the movie, the kids are all moping around Mikey's house, lamenting the dreaded loss of homesteads, when they finally devise a plan to sneak out from under the watchful gaze of older brother Brandon, played by the awesome Josh Brolin. Really, it's worth rewatching this movie just to see Brolin as a youngster, all attitude and shorts-over-sweats machismo, it's really amusing. Anyway, the kids tie up Brand with his exercise equipment and make a break for it, hopping on bikes and careening down the Oregonian hillside. Playing on the TV in the background is Cyndi Lauper's amazing, cheesy tie-in single 'The Goonies R' Good Enough'. The song has been a black sheep hit of hers - according to interviews she hated the song and simply refused to do it, going so far as to not release it in any official capacity other than the soundtrack for over 10 years. Not until the mid 90s did it see a re-release on a compiled retrospective.
I don't care if she hated it or how cheesy and weird it is, I absolutely adore the song. It may be just as much about the appearance of it, in media res, as it is for the songs qualities itself. Where it's spliced into the movie is a particularly satisfying chord change, right as it goes to the pre-chorus. The song has such build and tensions just from the chord progression, and when it quickly reaches the leaping and exuberant chorus its a moment of sublime 80s pop ensconced in a childhood favorite of mine. The titular Goonies are making their big break, running from home and heading off to adventure, bubbling pop music blaring along their escape. There is such a strong link in my mind between those sugary chords and the scenes in question that they are linked to the point of inseparability in my memories. Whenever I fire up the song on my headphones I still get that feeling of nostalgia or saudade in my mind, that almost tangible sense of longing and loss I wrote about in my article on (of all things) Norwegian Wood. It's honestly one of my earliest musical memories, only further embedded in my psyche by the fact that in the NES adaptation of the game there is a synthesized version of it that also got into my head.
This song is the definition of childhood guilty pleasure for me. It's such an early and ingrained memory, but even as I've grown up I still put it on every now and then. Okay, full confessional - it definitely makes appearances in some of my regular playlists, even if I do skip over it at times. While I may feel the self conscious pangs of sekrit joy at the sheer cheese on display I still go for it. At least once a year I'll watch the movie on DVD, or bust out the game on Nintendo just to remember, if only for a short time, what it felt like to be a kid. It's not so much about the song itself as it is recalling the feeling of being young and knowing there was music or a movie or a game that made you feel that special feeling in your chest of excitement and wanting to see/hear/play more. I guess part of it is that feeling contrasted with getting older - I try to recapture it like lightening in a bottle, even if I know it's impossible it's still a tantalizing and hard to resist temptation.
So what.
Here's to guilty pleasures.
I've been distracted all day and just want to write a bit to get the cobwebs out and flex the mental muscle. No easy way around this, I need to write just for writing's sake today. An appropriately self indulgent and shameful endeavor for the subject. What could be so strange and unusual a concept as to warrant such honest self abuse?
Cyndi Lauper, of course.
The Goonies R' Good Enough, of course.
I love The Goonies, the quintessential 80s adventure movie all about a group of misfit kids who, in a last ditch attempt to save their neighborhood, explore the caves under Astoria, OR and go looking for buried treasure. It's one of those films that benefits from the nostalgic tinge of rose colored lenses, but I still adore it despite, or perhaps even because of, its flaws. Today's article, though, is not so much about the movie itself but a bit of incidental/soundtrack music derived from it.
In a scene early on in the movie, the kids are all moping around Mikey's house, lamenting the dreaded loss of homesteads, when they finally devise a plan to sneak out from under the watchful gaze of older brother Brandon, played by the awesome Josh Brolin. Really, it's worth rewatching this movie just to see Brolin as a youngster, all attitude and shorts-over-sweats machismo, it's really amusing. Anyway, the kids tie up Brand with his exercise equipment and make a break for it, hopping on bikes and careening down the Oregonian hillside. Playing on the TV in the background is Cyndi Lauper's amazing, cheesy tie-in single 'The Goonies R' Good Enough'. The song has been a black sheep hit of hers - according to interviews she hated the song and simply refused to do it, going so far as to not release it in any official capacity other than the soundtrack for over 10 years. Not until the mid 90s did it see a re-release on a compiled retrospective.
So what.
Here's to guilty pleasures.
