Greetings Earthlings! Take me to your Phish!
March 31, 2006 7:06 AM   Subscribe

Can anyone identify the music used in the opening sequence of the film Contact?

At the beginning of the film, the audience hears the sounds of Earth radiating into space. At first, there's a chaotic blend, followed shortly by brief bursts of identifiable music. The first song is by the Spice Girls (ugh!). What I really want to know is the song a few seconds later, as the camera pulls away from Earth. It plays for perhaps 5 seconds, and sounds a bit like Phish. The song has the quality of several people harmonizing. It's driven me crazy ever since the movie was released, but in all my searches, I've never found any identifiying credits.

Help me, MeFi, you're my only hope.
posted by nightengine to Media & Arts (5 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
From IMDB's trivia section...

The sounds heard during the film's opening shot include:

* "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind
* "Wannabe" by The Spice Girls
* "God Shuffled His Feet" by Crash Test Dummies
* "Obviously a major malfunction..."
* Challenger Shuttle disaster quote
* The theme to"Dallas" (1978)
* "Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut..."
* chocolate bar commercial
* " Funkytown by Lipps Inc.
* Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech
* Walter Cronkite announcing the assassination of President Kennedy
* Neil Armstrong's "One Small Step" speech
* "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"
* "I Have A Dream..." a Martin Luther King Jr. speech
* Theme from "The Twilight Zone"
* Transition music from "Seinfeld"
* Song "Broken Wings"
* Senator McCarthy's infamous interrogation question ("Are you now or have you ever been...")
* Douglas MacArthur's "Old soldiers never die..." quote
* Franklin Roosevelt's 8 December 1941 address to Congress ("a date that will live in infamy")
* Song "We're In the Money"
* Opening speech by Adolf Hitler at the German Olympics, being the transmission in history that was aired with sufficient power to escape the Earth's atmosphere.
* White Bird by It's A Beautiful Day
* "Nel blu dipinto di blu" also known as "Volare" by Domenico Modugno
* "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by Taste of Honey
* "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" sung by Judy Garland
* Theme to "The Andy Griffith Show"
* "Please, Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes
posted by loquax at 7:20 AM on March 31, 2006


Best answer: If it was several people harmonizing (especially with a deep baritone), it certainly could have been "God Shuffled His Feet". Sounds like the Crash Test Dummies anyways, although I don't remeber hearing it in the movie. Good song. Good album too.
posted by loquax at 7:22 AM on March 31, 2006


"Semi-Charmed Life" also has harmonies at the beginning, kind of beachboys-esque
posted by blag at 7:56 AM on March 31, 2006


Oh yeah, I forgot about semi-charmed life. It does sound like it could be Phish, I guess. But is it possible that you don't know that song and have been living in North America for the last ten years?
posted by loquax at 8:14 AM on March 31, 2006


Is this the spot you meant?
posted by insomnus at 10:41 AM on March 31, 2006


« Older Help the Sun shine!   |   What do people do when their accountant dies... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.