Tag: Music

Writing Letters to Jodie Foster

LUKE: You know what people told me when I said you were coming here to live with me? They told me I was crazy, they told me I was insane, they told me to start writing letters to Jodie Foster.

Luke references John Hinckley Jr. (born 1955), a college drop-out from a wealthy family who attempted to assassinate president Ronald Reagan. Hinckley was reportedly seeking fame in a misguided effort to impress actress Jodie Foster (born Alicia Foster in 1962), with whom he had been obsessed since the 1976 film Taxi Driver, where Foster plays a sexually-trafficked twelve-year-old child – in the film, the disturbed protagonist plots to assassinate a presidential candidate (it’s based on a true story).

When Jodie Foster began attending Yale University, Hinckley moved to New Haven in order to stalk her, sending her dozens of letters and poems, and leaving messages on her answering machine. Believing that assassinating the president would somehow make him Foster’s equal, Hinckley fired a revolver six times at Ronald Reagan on March 30 1981, as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC. Although Hinckley did not hit Reagan, he was wounded when a bullet ricocheted and hit him in the chest. He also wounded a police officer and a Secret Service agent, and critically injured a press secretary, who died from his wounds in 2014.

John Hinckley Jr. was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982, and transferred to psychiatric care. He was released from hospital in 2016 into his mother’s care under numerous restrictions. As of June 2022, Hinckley will be living freely in the community. He has a YouTube channel, where he self-publishes his own songs; they are also available on Spotify and other streaming sites.

Brigadoon

CHRISTOPHER: Please, I saw what your face was doing … It was counting up how many Brigadoon references you could come up with to torture him with at a later date.

Brigadoon, a 1954 musical film directed by Vicente Minelli, based on the 1949 Broadway musical of the same name by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The film stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse and is about two American tourists on a hunting trip in Scotland who get lost in the woods and discover a miraculous village named Brigadoon, which rises out of the mists for one day every hundred years.

The film received lacklustre reviews and failed at the box office – unlike the stage musical, which was a big success.

Sookie’s Alternative Wedding Songs

Hey Jude

A 1968 song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney, and released as a non-album single. The ballad evolved from “Hey Jules”, a song McCartney wrote to comfort John Lennon’s young son Julian, after Lennon had left his wife for the Japanese artist Yoko Ono. The lyrics espouse a positive outlook on a sad situation, while also encouraging “Jude” to pursue his opportunities to find love. Hey Jude went to #1 all over the world, and had the highest sales for any single that year. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001, and is regarded as one of the greatest songs of all time. Paul McCartney continues to perform it in concert, and sang it at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London.

Seasons in the Sun

An English adaptation of the 1961 song “Le Moribond” (the Dying Man), by Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel. The lyrics were rewritten in 1963 by singer-poet Rod McKuen, who thought Brel’s version was “too macabre”. In the original, the man dies of a broken heart as he says farewell to his friends, and to his wife, who has been unfaithful to him. Rod McKuen changed it so that the dying man gives his last words to his loved ones, and passes away peacefully. The song became a hit for Canadian singer Terry Jacks in 1974, and went to #1 around the world.

Cat’s in the Cradle

A 1974 folk rock song by Harry Chapin, from the album Verities & Balderdash. Partly based on a poem written by Harry’s wife, poet-singer and activist Sandy Gaston, the lyrics describe the relationship between a man who is too busy working to spend time with his son. When his son grows up, he is too busy working to spend any time with his father. It was Chapin’s only song to reach #1 in the US, is the best known of his works, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.

Don’t Cry Out Loud

A 1976 song written by Australian singer-songwriter Peter Allen, with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager. The song is about having to keep emotional pain to yourself. Although Sager wrote the lyrics, they seem to be inspired by Allen’s experience, as he was told to keep his “best face forward” after his father’s suicide when he was 14. The woman in the song has the same nickname as Peter Allen’s sister, Baby. First recorded by R&B group The Moments, it was a hit for Melissa Manchester in 1978, reaching #10 in the US and #9 in Canada.

I Can’t Get Started

This is the song that Sookie has chosen for her wedding, and is playing it for Lorelai, Rory, and Michel to hear.

“I Can’t Get Started” is a 1936 popular song, composed by Vernon Duke with lyrics by Ira Gershwin. It was introduced in the film Ziegfield Follies of 1936, performed by Bob Hope and Eve Arden. The 1937 version by jazz trumpeter Bunny Berigan went to #10 in the charts and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975.

Sookie is playing Ella Fitzgerald’s version, which was included on her 1953 album, Sweet and Hot. It’s also on her 1973 live album, Newport Jazz Festival: Live at Carnegie Hall. This album also includes her song, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket”, which was previously used as an episode title on Gilmore Girls.

Lorelai protests that the lyrics are far too depressing for a wedding song, being about a relationship that will never get off the ground:

I’ve flown around the world in a plane
I’ve settled revolutions in Spain
The North Pole I have charted, but I can’t get
Started with you

Around the golf course I’m under par
And all the movies want me to star
I’ve got a house, a show place, but I get no
Place with you

You’re so supreme, lyrics I write of you
Scheme, just for a sight of you
Dream, both day and night of you
And what good does it do?

In 1929 I sold short
In England I’m presented at court
But you’ve got me downhearted, cause I can’t get
Started with you

You’re so supreme, lyrics I write of you
Scheme, just for a sight of you
Dream, both day and night of you
And what good does it do?

It’s been chosen as the title of the episode, so we know that the season will end with at least one romantic whump!

Rory’s List of Punishments

Grounded for 7 months (which is until the Christmas holidays)

No TV

No stereo

No phone

No reading of books or magazines

Has to do all the housework, including laundry and dishes

Gets a beating

No oxygen, no breathing

Lorelai gets complete control of the TV remote and the stereo as long as she wants

Lorelai gets to choose every single meal

Lorelai gets a special present every month

Has to replace the Go-Go’s album she left on the bus

Sent to bed without any supper

A bad night’s sleep

Rory has spent her time on the bus writing up a list of strict punishments for herself for going to New York and missing Lorelai’s graduation. When she gets home and sees Lorelai, she adds even more punishments, until they become so ridiculous that in the end, Rory appears to escape having any punishment at all – except one extremely horrible bus trip, and the knowledge that she has badly hurt and disappointed her mother (not to mention betraying her boyfriend Dean, not that she seems too concerned about that at present). I can perfectly believe that Rory had a very bad sleep that night.

Shaun Cassidy

LORELAI: Yeah, I never leave home without all the essentials: mirror, makeup, picture of Shaun Cassidy.

Shaun Cassidy (born 1958), singer, actor, writer, and producer. He is the son of Oscar-winning actress Shirley Jones and Tony Award-winning actor Jack Cassidy, the half-brother of David Cassidy from The Partridge Family, and the brother of actor Patrick Cassidy.

While still in high school, he signed a record contract and forged a career as a teen pop idol. His biggest hit was “Da Doo Ron Ron”, which went to #1 in 1977. At the same time, he starred in The Hardy Boys Mysteries on television, and had a role on General Hospital.

During the 1980s and 1990s he concentrated on stage acting, performing on Broadway and in the West End. He wrote his first television pilot in 1995 while appearing in Blood Brothers on Broadway alongside David Cassidy, and has gone on to have a successful career as a screenwriter and TV producer.

Lorelai implies she had a crush on Shaun Cassidy when she was a little girl, although also, a bit oddly, that her make-up routine dates to the same period, when she would have been aged 8 to 12. This actually makes more sense for someone Amy Sherman-Palladino’s age, as she would have been around 14 at the end of Cassidy’s pop star career.

It sometimes feels as if the Palladinos forget that the small age gap between them and their fictional character Lorelai would still make a difference in the childhood years, and they can’t just give Lorelai all Amy’s childhood memories.

The Go-Go’s

JESS: Go-Go’s. You must have that one.

RORY: No, for my mom. This was her favorite group when she was my age, and it’s signed by Belinda. This would be the perfect graduation present. I’ve been looking for something all week long, and I couldn’t find anything and now I have Belinda.

The Go-Go’s, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1978, the classic line-up consisting of Charlotte Caffey on lead guitar and keyboards, Belinda Carlisle on lead vocals, Gina Schock on drums, Kathy Valentine on bass guitar, and Jane Wiedlin on rhythm guitar. They are widely considered the most successful all-female rock band of all time.

Originating in the punk scene of the 1970s, their 1981 debut album Beauty and the Beat went to #1 on the Billboard charts – the first (and so far, only) time this has been achieved by an all-female group writing their own material and playing their own instruments. Considered a cornerstone of the new wave movement, it had two major hits – “Our Lips Are Sealed” (#20) and “We Got the Beat” (#2). It spent six weeks at the top of the charts, and sold more than two million copies. Their follow-up albums were Vacation (1982) and Talk Show (1984).

The Go-Go’s broke up in 1985 to follow solo careers, and have regrouped several times in order to tour together. Their most recent album is God Bless The Go-Go’s (2001), and they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011. Although their 2016 performance was billed as a farewell tour, they remain active. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.

I’m not sure, but I think the album that Rory picks out is their first one, Beauty and the Beat. You can only see the back of it, but it has the same colour scheme as the debut album. It is signed by Belinda Carlisle (born 1958), the band’s lead vocalist. She had a successful solo career in the 1980s, with such hits as “Mad About You”, “I Get Weak”, and “Heaven is a Place on Earth”, the last reaching #1.

Note this is another all-female rock band that Lorelai likes.

Slint

JESS: Who’s Slint? …

OWNER: Grunge band out of Kentucky. Two albums, plus a double-A side single, disbanded in ’94.

Slint, an indie rock band (not grunge) from Louisville, Kentucky, formed in 1982 by drummer Britt Walford and guitarist and vocalist Brian McMahan. They named the band after a pet goldfish.

Their two albums were Tweez (1989) and Spiderland (1991); they released an untitled EP in 1994 (recorded in 1989), which is what the record store owner means by a double-A single. One side of the EP is called “Glenn”, and the other side “Rhoda”, and both tracks were intended to be released as singles (“Rhoda” was about a dog). They broke up in 1990, but reformed briefly in 1992 and 1994, and regrouped again in 2005, 2007, 2013, and 2014 for international tours.

Although Slint’s work received minimal attention at first, their second album was praised by the UK music press for its originality and emotional intensity, and became a major influence on post-rock bands such as Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky. Spiderland is a favourite of Dinosaur Jr, P.J. Harvey, Pavement, and The Shins, and is regarded as one of the best albums of the 1990s.

The band have been likened to Pavement, one of Jess’ favourite bands, suggesting he would also enjoy Slint.

Note that the record shop owner is played by Chuck E. Weiss (1945-2021), legendary singer, songwriter and musician, known for an eclectic mix of blues, beat poetry, and rock and roll. He is referred to in the lyrics of several Tom Waits‘ songs, and is the subject of “Chuck E’s in Love” by Rickie Lee Jones. His most recent album at this point was Old Souls and Wolf Tickets (2001), and his parents owned a record store in Denver, Colorado.

Monkey Gone to Heaven

This 1989 song by alternative rock band The Pixies plays while Rory and Jess are in the record store. Written and sung by the band’s frontman, Black Francis, it was released as a single from their 1988 album Doolittle. The song received a positive reaction from critics and went to #5 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks, and to #60 in the UK. It is considered one of the greatest songs ever.

Although the lyrics reference biblical numerology and environmental concerns, I think the song was chosen simply because it was a believable choice for a cool indie record store, and to indicate that Jess (a naughty little monkey!) is simply in heaven, being in a great record store with Rory, the girl he likes.