Tape the VHS

In the early 90’s my family bought a massive 32 inch television screen in the basement that was connected to my dad’s stereo system for amazing sound.  I’ll never forget the day we first connected everything: my family spent that whole first day watching A New Hope, Empire and Jedi eating all the candy and chocolate and chips that we could, just amazed at how big the picture was and how incredible it all sounded.

I don’t have pictures of my dad’s stereo system but, searching around online, I found this picture that closely resembles the setup he had.

He was a bit of music nut, my dad.  Over 300 albums organized by artist on coloured planks of wood, held up by cinder blocks, and a passion project to convert them all onto cassette tape.  He had probably close to 200 tapes, all arranged neatly in a cassette decks on top of the albums, his precision all-caps handwriting showing what was on side A and side B of each.  Artists were often mismatched on the same tape with no real order to his album conversions.  It was thus normal to have Fleetwood Mac on one side followed by Muddy Waters on Side B.  Bryan Adams and Queen.  Genesis and Gordon Lightfoot.

Around this same time I was very into movie soundtracks and I asked my dad if his stereo could tape from the VHS player the same way he was converting his albums.  He didn’t know and, in a shocking move, he gave me permission to fool around with the cables and wires to see if I could get it to work.

After some doing, I managed to get it to work and I will never forget how excited I felt because suddenly a whole universe of mix tape opportunities had opened up to me.  You could buy movie soundtracks at the store of course, but generally I was only interested in the main themes of the movies and some movies weren’t popular enough to have their own soundtracks available.

So many Sunday mornings spent monopolizing the TV, going through our VHS collection (which was also vast enough in it’s own right) and fast forwarding the movies to the end credits just so I could tape the theme onto cassette.

I found one of those tapes this morning and I’ve been listening to it while composing this post and it’s bringing me right back to my childhood.  I would listen to this tape on my walkman constantly and fall asleep to it.

As I type this I’m on the 2nd Jurassic Park track on side B and I remember that this track, the 1412 March (miswritten as it’s the 1942 March) and E.T. I ripped off a John Williams “Best Of” cassette, but all of the others came straight from the VHS.

So many painstaking hours.  And SUCH good music.

Because it’s easier to do than sharing the cassette experience I’m currently enjoying, here are three themes from this cassette on YouTube that aren’t the well known John Williams ones.

The Great Escape

My go-to answer for “what is your favourite movie of all time?”  I’ve watched this movie at least 15 times and part of me wants to write it into my will that this is the music I want playing when I’m dead during my cremation.  I think that would be hilarious.

Crocodile Dundee

There is no mistaking how huge a movie this was when it was released, and probably one of the things it was known least for was its soundtrack.  A perfect example, in my mind, of why this setup with my dad’s stereo was so incredible to me.

The 3 minutes and 15 seconds of slow build before we get anything resembling a melody, the infusion of horns with the didgeridoo… modern (for the 80’s) and traditional at the same time.  So good.  And the blend into the love theme at the 5 minute mark… seamless.

A soundtrack is also elevated when it cannot be separated from the story it is helping to tell.

I’m sure I’ve posted this belief before, because I seem to remember getting a lot of blowback on this claim, but the ending to Crocodile Dundee is in the top three best movie-endings of all time.

Here is that soundtrack again in the context of that incredible final scene.

Willow

The 80’s were an amazing time for fantasy movies and, born in the late 70’s, I was the prime target age for movies like The Black Cauldron, Labyrinth, The Princess Bride and The Neverending Story.  Not every movie was great (even 8 year old me thought Legend sucked), but one that I was completely bought into was Willow, a movie that I feel still holds up to this day.

This is a great review of the movie, and of George Lucas’ storytelling methods, that puts into words far better than I could as to why the movie still holds up.

Having watched the movie at least 30 times in my life, this soundtrack, almost more than any other, brings me right back to childhood.

And, having taped it from the end credits from the VHS, I remember how HARD it was to get it started at just the right time because I wanted the main theme and not the village folk-band piece that started the credits.  This one took me hours to get right on the cassette tape.  And now, in the space of ten seconds, here it is on YouTube:

* * * * *

Further Reading: Greatest Film Scores Of All Time

After listening to this, do you agree that this should be #245 on the greatest film scores of all time?  Behind such musical tour de forces such as The Untouchables and Tron: Legacy – both in the top 100?

If you don’t agree, click that link above and scroll down until you see the movie and give it a boost, would ya?

Now that I’ve done that, I think it’s about time to watch the movie again.