Tag: Music

Stephanie Seymour in the Guns N’ Roses Video

RORY: So, what kind of dress are you thinking of?
LORELAI: Um, the one Stephanie Seymour wore in the Guns N’ Roses video.

Lorelai is referring to the music video to the 1992 power ballad November Rain, written by Axl Rose and from Guns N’ Roses’ 1991 album Use Your Illusion I. The song got to #3 on the charts, and at over eight minutes long, is the longest song to ever get into the Top Ten.

The music video, directed by Andy Morhan, shows Axl Rose getting married to his then-girlfriend, model and actress Stephanie Seymour, intercut with a live performance of the song. Seymour is wearing a traditional white wedding dress with a long train and a veil, but the front of the dress puffed up to be as short as a mini skirt. On a budget of over one million dollars (with $8000 spent on the dress), the video won the MTV Award for Best Cinematography.

The song is about a man’s unrequited love for a woman who no longer loves him in return, another foreshadowing of what is to come between Lorelai and Max. (The name Axl even looks and sounds a little like the name Max). The music video is based on the short story Without You by Del James, a friend of Rose’s; in the story the girl shoots herself, but the music video is ambiguous whether the Stephanie Seymour character’s death is a suicide or a murder. Yet another love leads to death reference in Gilmore Girls!

In 1993, Stephanie Seymour abruptly left Axl Rose to be with someone else – a foreshadowing of Lorelai’s future behaviour.

“You’re gonna be a Sadie”

SOOKIE: You’re gonna be a Sadie.
LORELAI: A what?
SOOKIE: A Sadie. [sings] “Sadie, Sadie, married lady. Meet a mortgagee.”
LORELAI: Funny Girl!
SOOKIE: Streisand!
LORELAI: Love it!

Sookie sings from Sadie, Sadie – the song which gives this episode its title. As Sookie and Lorelai’s dialogue makes clear, it’s from the musical film Funny Girl, starring Barbra Streisand, and previously discussed. Lorelai and Rory have both called each other “funny girl”, and here Lorelai confirms that she loves the film.

In the movie, this song is sung when Fanny Brice, the comedienne and Ziegfield Follies star who is the subject of the film, marries her husband Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif). What Sookie and Lorelai do not acknowledge is that the marriage was a mistake: Nick was a gambler and criminal, and he and Fanny separated after he was sent to prison.

Almost every reference to marriage in this episode, while Lorelai is deciding whether to marry Max, is negative in tone, with a focus on marriages that don’t last. Lorelai doesn’t seem to take notice of these many hints.

Fame

MICHEL: I figure if I stay alive long enough, these scientists, they will be able to cure anything including death, therefore ensuring my indefinite existence.
SOOKIE: So you’re gonna live forever, like on Fame?

Fame is a 1980 teen musical drama film directed by Alan Parker, and inspired in part by the musical A Chorus Line. It follows the lives of students attending the High School of Performing Arts in New York (now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School), from their auditions through four years of high school.

The movie’s theme song, Fame, has a chorus which begins, “I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly high”. It’s sung by Irene Cara, who had the lead role of Coco Hernandez in the film. The song reached #4 in the charts, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, while the entire movie score won another Academy Award.

The movie was successful and well-received critically. It has become a franchise with several television series (one in the early 1980s that Lorelai and Sookie would remember very well), a stage musical, and a remake.

Ivana Trump

BOOTSY: So, apparently they shoot a gland from a pig’s head in Ivana Trump’s rear end twice a month to keep her looking young.
LORELAI: Wow, hope she’s not kosher.
BOOTSY: I don’t know, doesn’t say here.

Ivana Trump (born Ivana Zelníčková in 1949) is a Czech-born American businesswoman and former model who was the first wife of Donald Trump, now the US president. They were married in 1977 and divorced in 1992, and he was her second husband. She has married twice more.

After her divorce from Trump, Ivana began selling her own line of clothing, jewellery, and beauty products through home shopping channels, wrote several novels and a self-help book on surviving divorce, had her own advice column, and bought up interests in Croatian media.

The story about pig’s gland being injected into her butt every two weeks seems to be fictional, but in line with the ideas of what silly, vain, and very wealthy socialites might get up to. Ivana Trump is not Jewish, and therefore not kosher.

The reference to the much-married Ivana may be a hint to Lorelai that marriage does not always last.

This is our introduction to a new character, the news vendor Bootsy (Brian Tarantina). We never learn Bootsy’s real name, or why he was given the nickname Bootsy. The name might remind you of singer William “Bootsy” Collins from Bootsy’s Rubber Band; in his case, his mother nicknamed him Bootsy because “he looked like a Bootsy”.

“Any other subject in the world for 200”

RORY: Oh! You should walk down the aisle to Frank Sinatra with a huge bouquet of something that smells really good.
LORELAI: Pot roast.
RORY: And you should wear a long veil with your hair up.
LORELAI: Ugh, I’ll take any other subject in the world for 200, Alex.

Lorelai is referring to the game show Jeopardy!, previously discussed. The host is Alex Trebek, and Lorelai mimics the game play of the show, with contestants choosing a particular subject for a certain amount of money (such as $200).

Lauren Graham, who played Lorelai Gilmore, went on Jeopardy! as a contestant in a celebrity episode of the show.

I Found Love

This 1968 love song by sunshine pop group The Free Design plays during the first scene. The centre of town is covered in yellow daisies, and Lorelai and Rory are crossing the street together, showing their transition from single status to coupledom.

I Found Love is the eighth track on the band’s album You Could Be Born Again. Although The Free Design did not gain much recognition during their career, they had something of a revival in the mid-1990s and were influential on later acts – including Beck, previously discussed as one of Lane’s favourite musical artists.

We know that Season Two opens on the day after Season One ended, because Lorelai later tells Miss Patty that the proposal was the night before. We also know it’s a Saturday, because Rory isn’t in school, which means Season One ended on a Friday.

Music Referenced in Season One

ALBUMS

Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles

The Best of Blondie – Blondie

Pink Moon – Nick Drake

Music from a Sparkling Planet – Juan García Esquivel

Frampton Comes Alive! II – Peter Frampton

End Hits – Fugazi

The Sophtware Slump – Grandaddy

On How Life Is – Macy Gray

Autobahn – Kraftwerk

Let’s Spend the Night Together – Claudine Longet

Up on the Sun – Meat Puppets

1999 – Prince

The Love Symbol Album – Prince

The Transformed Man – William Shatner

Timeless: Live in Concert – Barbra Streisand

Woodstock ’99 – Various Artists

The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground

Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2) – XTC

Colossal Youth – Young Marble Giants

SONGS

All Out of Love – Air Supply

Happy Birthday – Altered Images

A Kiss to Build a Dream On – Louis Armstrong

What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong

Eternal Flame – The Bangles

Here Takes a Fall – The Bangles

Walk Like an Egyptian – The Bangles

PS I Love You – The Beatles

Mixed Bizness – Beck

Where It’s At – Beck

Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town – Tony Bennett

My Ding-a-Ling – Chuck Berry

Thirteen – Big Star

Child Psychology – Black Box Recorder

Iron Man – Black Sabbath

From Red to Blue – Billy Bragg

This Ole House – The Brian Setzer Orchestra

Teach Me Tonight, written by Sammy Cahn and Gene De Paul

Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash

Everyday I Write the Book – Elvis Costello and The Attractions

Zombie – The Cranberries

Pictures of You – The Cure

Stop and Smell the Roses – Mac Davis

Smoke on the Water – Deep Purple

Pink Moon – Nick Drake

Flower Girl of Bordeaux – Esquivel

Johnny Angel – Shelley Fabares

Everlong – Foo Fighters

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off – George and Ira Gershwin (from Shall We Dance?)

Suppertime, written by Clark Gesner (from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown)

The Crystal Lake – Grandaddy

The Cabbage Patch – Gucci Crew II

Happy Birthday to You, written by Patty and Mildred Hall

One Line – P.J. Harvey

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me – The Jayhawks

Sometimes Always – The Jesus & Mary Chain

Happy Xmas (War is Over) – John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with The Harlem Community Choir

Someone to Watch Over Me – Rickie Lee Jones

Money, Money, written by John Kander and Fred Ebb (from Cabaret)

Where You Lead – Carole King

There She Goes – The La’s

Oh My Love – John Lennon

God Only Knows – Claudine Longet

Convoy – C.W. McCall

Like a Virgin – Madonna

Livin’ la Vida Loca – Ricky Martin

Shake Your Bon-Bon – Ricky Martin

Fade Into You – Mazzy Star

I Thought About You, written by Johnny Mercer and Jimmy Van Heusen

Ms Jackson – Outkast

Beautiful Dreamers – Grant Lee Phillips

Everybody Needs a Little Sanctuary – Grant Lee Phillips

Heavenly – Grant Lee Phillips

Honey, Don’t Think – Grant Lee Phillips

It’s the Life – Grant Lee Phillips

Mockingbirds – Grant Lee Phillips

Sadness Soot – Grant Lee Phillips

Sunday Best – Grant Lee Phillips

Truly, Truly – Grant Lee Phillips

Holding Onto the Earth – Sam Phillips

I Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye to You – Sam Phillips

What Do I Do – Sam Phillips

Where the Colors Don’t Go – Sam Phillips

La Casa – Graham Preskett and Mauricio Venegas-Astorga

Time Bomb – Rancid

I’m Too Sexy – Right Said Fred

Jumpin’ Jack Flash – The Rolling Stones

Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds – William Shatner

Tambourine Man – William Shatner

It’s a Small World After All, written by Richard and Robert Sherman

Sister Suffragette, written by Richard and Robert Sherman (from Mary Poppins)

Call Me Al – Paul Simon

We Are Family – Sister Sledge

… One More Time – Britney Spears

Cleopatra, Queen of Denial – Pam Tillis

The First Noel, traditional

Why Does It Always Rain On Me? – Travis

Man! I Feel Like a Woman – Shania Twain

PS I Love You – Rudy Valee

Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, written by Charles Wesley and Felix Mendelssohn

My Darling – Wilco

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, written by Meredith Wilson

Thanks for Christmas – The Three Wise Men (XTC)

Earn Enough for Us – XTC

I’m the Man Who Murdered Love – XTC

We’re All Light – XTC

My Little Corner of the World – Yo La Tengo

CLASSICAL & ORCHESTRAL

The Four Seasons, written by Antonio Vivaldi

The Stars and Stripes Forever, written by John Philip Sousa

Swan Lake, written by Pyotr Tchaikovsky

MUSICAL ARTISTS & COMPOSERS

98°

Aerosmith

B-52s

The Backstreet Boys

Samuel Barber

The Bee Gees

Pat Benatar

The Blue Man Group

Blur

Bon Jovi

Boston

Bush

John Cage

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

Dixie Chicks

The Doors

Duran Duran

Echo & The Bunnymen

Eminem

Philip Glass

Hanson

Hole

Michael Jackson

Rick James

Joy Division

Kraftwerk

Jennifer Lopez

Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch

Metallica

Thelonious Monk

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

NSYNC

The Offspring

Charlie Parker

Liz Phair

Elvis Presley

Prince

Tito Puente

Queen

Lou Reed

RuPaul

Artie Shaw

Frank Sinatra

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Britney Spears

Steely Dan

The Sugarplastic

U2

Tom Waits

The Wallflowers

My Little Corner of the World

This 1997 song by Yo La Tengo plays at the very end of the episode, as Lorelai and Rory run towards each other from opposite sides of the street. It creates a “bookends effect”, as this was the song that played at the end of the first episode of the season, and we are now watching the final moments of the last episode of the season.

It repeats the theme of safety and security, as Stars Hollow itself becomes a sanctuary. The final thing we see is the gazebo in the town square, the heart of the town and a sacred place dedicated to love. Its twinkle lights echo the stars above who gave their name to the town, and lead lovers back into each others’ arms.

Everybody Needs a Little Sanctuary

After receiving her daisies, Lorelai walks past the Town Troubadour, who is singing this 1998 song by Grant Lee Buffalo. The rival Troubadour walks by, and the Town Troubadour gives a little nod, indicating that he can join in, which he does. Hence the two troubadours mend their quarrel – this episode is all about ending arguments and bringing people together.

Everybody Needs a Little Sanctuary is from the band’s album Jubilee, previously mentioned. The song uses the metaphor of bees in their hive to evoke the sweetness of love (a slight callback to Rory’s dream about swimming in honey), and mentions the queen, as if Lorelai is the “queen bee” of Stars Hollow. It is another song about love bringing safety and security: like Rory with her boyfriend Dean, Lorelai seems to be most attracted to Max as a safe place to be.