Songs that remix dialogue from films?

May 24, 2009 2:41 AM

PF Project's song Choose Life is constructed from samples of a monologue by the lead character of the film Trainspotting. Similarly, This Is Your Life by the Dust Brothers is built around samples from the film Fight Club reformulated as a monologue and overlaid on some trip-hop beats. Neither was actually featured in the film, but were released as singles and appeared on the soundtrack. What other songs like this are there?
posted by xchmp to media & arts (19 comments total)

Scooby Snacks by Fun Lovin' Criminals samples pulp Fiction...
posted by Mrevilbreakfast at 3:29 AM on May 24

"The Reaper Rap", by Steve Vai, of "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey"! I don't know if it was released as a single, though. But it is on the soundtrack!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:56 AM on May 24

Public Image Ltd. made “Order of Death” using samples from The Blair Witch Project.
posted by ads at 6:06 AM on May 24

White Stripes' song The Union Forever contains a bunch of lines from Citizen Kane.
posted by billysumday at 6:22 AM on May 24

"Your Mind Belongs to the State" by Meat Beat Manifesto samples extensively from James Toback's The Big Bang and the Monkees movie Head.
posted by infinitewindow at 6:25 AM on May 24

Herbaliser samples voice clips, I'm not aware of sample origins though.
posted by ijoyner at 6:29 AM on May 24

Outro by Catherine Wheel steals a bunch of line's from Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity". Not a movie, but similar idea - and the same words may be in the film - it's been a while since I've seen it.
posted by backwards guitar at 6:50 AM on May 24

White Stripes' song The Union Forever contains a bunch of lines from Citizen Kane.

That's a little different from what the asker is looking for though if I understand the question correctly, as it's a medley of songs that are partially performed in Citizen Kane, rather than a patchwork of spoken dialogue. It's also sung by Jack White, not sampled from the actual film soundtrack.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:53 AM on May 24

To confirm, do you only want songs that sample dialog and were released as singles and appear on the soundtrack of the movie they sample from? Or just songs that sample movie dialogue?
posted by neustile at 7:15 AM on May 24

I'm looking for songs with lyrics that are substantially or entirely sampled from a film. Bonus points if they're on the soundtrack and were released as singles, but that's not essential.
posted by xchmp at 11:11 AM on May 24

Velvet Acid Christ, "Futile 98" from Fun With Knives is sampled entirely from one of the Star Trek movies (Nemesis, I think).
posted by jferg at 12:19 PM on May 24

Unkle's "I Need Something Stronger", from Never, Never, Land samples THX 1138 pretty heavily.
posted by Remy at 12:34 PM on May 24

Incubus - Recoil

Monologue from Apocalypse Now
posted by kampken at 2:34 PM on May 24

Orbital - Beached (on the soundtrack and is structured very similarly to the PF project track)
posted by Mil at 3:07 PM on May 24

This is going way back, but there was a song like this by Prince - it was almost purely instrumental, and the movie's "official" song - for Tim Burton's first Batman movie. To make it more interesting (in the context of your question), I believe that it was only the radio cut that contained dialogue samples from the movie, while the soundtrack album version didn't include them.
posted by hiteleven at 6:52 PM on May 24

Here you go, check out the remixes seciton here.
posted by hiteleven at 6:54 PM on May 24

DJ Shadow's Song Stem (Cops 'n' Robbers mix) sampled heavily from a movie. Google tells me it is sampled from the movie Heat.
posted by DJWeezy at 8:08 AM on May 25

some guy named pogo does some amazing songs in this style too. He has songs built from Alice in Wonderland, The King and I, Harry Potter, and more.
posted by nomisxid at 1:16 PM on May 25

I believe that the Propellerheads' Velvet Pants uses samples from the documentary "Groupies" for its lyrics.
posted by rhinny at 2:03 PM on May 25