Music, sweet music.

December 21, 2012 4:33 AM

What is the name of this piece of music from the True Romance soundtrack? Bonus round: where else have I heard it?

I was watching True Romance last night, which I reckon I have not seen since it came out in 1993. There is a piece of music on the soundtrack which seems strangely familiar. I have a paralyzing suspicion that has been used elsewhere as well -- maybe in Baraka, maybe at some Olympics ceremony or something. Or perhaps it is one of those pieces reused endlessly in trailers. Any clues?

posted by ricochet biscuit to sports, hobbies, & recreation (9 answers total)

Hans Zimmer - You're So Cool

looks like it bears some similarity to Carl Orff's Gassenhauer. Not sure if the Hans Zimmer version is actually sampling Orff or just a very sincere form of flattery.
posted by dubold at 4:37 AM on December 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

oops. messed up my first link: You're So Cool
posted by dubold at 4:39 AM on December 21, 2012

and the Wikipedia entry for True Romance says

The film's score by Hans Zimmer is a theme based on Gassenhauer from Carl Orff's Schulwerk. This theme combined with a voiceover spoken by Arquette is an homage to Terrence Malick's 1973 crime film Badlands, in which Sissy Spacek speaks the voiceover, and that also shares similar dramatic motifs.

Here's the music from Badlands, for comparison.
posted by dubold at 4:46 AM on December 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes, Badlands is it.
posted by essexjan at 5:11 AM on December 21, 2012

It is also a piece of music that seems to be gaining some traction as a wedding march (or whatever you call the music that plays when the bride walks down the aisle). We used it at my wedding, and have since heard it at two more weddings.
posted by joelhunt at 6:07 AM on December 21, 2012

This song has always reminded me of the Enya song Orinoco.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:54 AM on December 21, 2012

"You're So Cool" has been used in a bunch of different places since True Romance. The first one that comes to mind is a Dr. Seuss-themed commercial that aired during some prime commercial time--Superbowl? The Olympics?--sometime within the past 5 years. But I know I've heard it in other trailers and commercials, because it's a meaningful song for my partner and I, and it always makes us happy to hear it unexpectedly.
posted by rhiannonstone at 12:09 PM on December 21, 2012

Thanks, all. (And when I say all, I am looking in a duboldward direction.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:54 PM on December 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

The odd thing is that I did not see Badlands until maybe the late nineties or early aughts, so my vague recollections of having heard it since may be my half-remembered experience of the Badlands soundtrack.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:07 AM on December 22, 2012