For your musical diversion

Time was, soundtracks had hidden treasures, rare songs by your favorite artists. Nowadays you can just go to Itunes and burn a CD called Soundtrack songs I used to have to buy ten CDs to get. Now from an economic perspective, it is obviously a better solution, but life isn't just a spreadsheet. The joy of the hunt is, if not dead, at least less challenging.

Here are some good songs from the soundtrack days:

Ramones- I Want You Around. As this video shows, in Rock N Roll High School, PJ Soles lights up a spliff and suddenly the Ramones are playing this in her bedroom. This might be the only good Ramones ballad.

REM - Romance. You can get this on Eponymous, (out of print?) an early best of collection. The song was from a soundtrack the band didn't name out of embarrassment. I'll save you the IMDB search, it's Made in Heaven.

Joe Strummer - Love Kills. The theme song from Sid and Nancy. So it is really happy as you can imagine. The video features Gary Oldman as Sid as he visits Mexico.

Pavement - Painted Soldiers. A Spiral Stairs song. In the video he fires the rest of Pavement and replaces them with Veruca Salt, a conceit somewhat adapted in Grandaddy's El Caminos in the West.

Everlast - I think I'm Going to Die Today. This one is from Arnie's devil movie. A good song.

In a related category we have the bonus new song on the greatest hits collection/live album. Case in point, the Rolling Stones High Wire from 1991. It's catchy, but hardly a great Stones song. However, these verses seems rather relevant today:

Our lives are threatened, our jobs at risk
Sometimes dictators need a slap on the wrist
Another Munich we just can't afford
We're gonna send in the 82nd Airborne

We walk the highwire
Putting the world out on a dead lie
And hoping they don't taste the shell-fire
Of hot guns and cold, cold lies