A Love Song for Bobby Long
EUR 8,02
- Someday
- Lorraine S Song (My Heart Was A Lonely Hunter)
- Bone
- Bobby (Original Score)
- Different Stars
- Lonesome Blues
- Early Every Morning
- I Really Don T Want To Know
- Barbara Allen
- This Isn T It
- Daughter Like Mother
- Rising Song
- Washboard Lisa
- Blonde On Blonde
- Praying Ground Blues
- Love Song For Baby Long
Grayson Capp s songs do his daddy s story proud - I did not notice until I was looking over this soundtrack for A Love Song for Bobby Long that I figured out that Grayson Capps, who writes the songs attributed to the character of Lorraine, whose death sets the story into motion, is the son of Evertt Capps, who wrote the novel Off Magazine Street on which the 2005 film directed by Shainee Gabel was based. There are only three songs on the soundtrack that Capps wrote and sang for the film on the soundtrack, Washboard Lisa, Love Song for Bobby Long, and a lovely duet with Theresa Andersson on Lorraine s Song (My Heart Was a Lonely Hunter). But they are three of the most important songs since they are essentially the missing character speaking to the living from beyond the grave. All three of those and another nine songs are available on Capps album, If You Knew My Mind (which comes out in two days as I write this), so those of us who are disappointed there are only the three songs will have someplace to go to find what will hopefully be more of the same (there are definitely a couple of more tracks Capps does in the film on that album).John Travolta, who plays the character of Bobby Long, sings a brief cover of I Really Don t Want to Know and a short version of the traditional song Barbara Allen to the simple accompaniment of a guitar, which underscores that most of the songs in this movie and on this soundtrack were sung in the film and not simply being played on the radio or layered under the dialogue or being substituted for same. There are a few that fit into this last category, Bobby and Daughter Like Mother. But mostly there are some songs hauntingly sung, such as Bone by Thalia Zedek and Different Stars by Trespassers William. The common denominator is that these songs are integral parts of the film and help make it work despite some melodramatic elements. If it were not for Barbara Allen I would not have recognized a single song on this album, but I would have to go back to Eddie and the Cruisers to name a movie where I was pretty much totally unfamiliar with the Someday by Los Lobos makes sense as the first track because it sets the mood for the story, although so does Lonnie Pitchford s Lonesome Blues. But even when we talk the blues they are not all in the same key, as evidenced by Early Every Morning by Magic Slim and the Teardrops, Rising Son by Big Bill Morganfield, and Praying Ground Blues by Lightin Hopkins. A lot of these are old school blues, which is what you should be expecting since the movie s story does not really lend itself to Dixieland Jazz. Then the soundtrack throws in This Isn t It by Giant Drag to make it clear there is still alternative rock out there and represent the world on which Scarlett Johansson s character is turning her back. But besides Nada Surf s poignant Blonde on Blonde, you will keep coming back to those songs of Grayson Capps as being the heart and soul of this album. You wait pretty much the entire movie for the title song to show up, and when it does it is perfectly on point. Seeing the movie Love Song for Bobby Long will make you like this soundtrack even more, but that is even more true in reverse.