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The Wicker Man | |
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Soundtrack album by Paul Giovanni and Magnet | |
Released | 1998, 2002 |
Recorded | 1973 |
Genre | |
Length | 42:43 (1998 release), 39:41 (2002 release) |
Label | Trunk (1998 release), Silva Screen (2002 release) |
The Wicker Man is the soundtrack to the 1973 film of the same name. Composed, arranged and recorded by Paul Giovanni and Magnet, it contains folk songs performed by characters in the film (including some by members of the cast). For example, Lesley Mackie, who plays the character of Daisy in the film, sings the opening song, and various others in the CD Soundtrack.
The songs were arranged to hint at a pre-Christian pagan European culture and vary between traditional songs, original Giovanni compositions and even nursery rhyme in "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep". Musicians forming the folk band in the film included Michael Cole (Bassoon and concertina) and Ian Cutler (Violin). This mix of songs contributes to the film's atmosphere, contrasting rabble-rousing songs that depict the island's community like "The Landlord's Daughter" and the child-sung "Maypole" with the sinister "Fire Leap" and the erotic "Willow's Song" before culminating in the islanders' rendition of the Middle English "Sumer Is Icumen In".
The opening music and "Corn Rigs" are arrangements of the Robert Burns ballads "The Highland Widow's Lament" and "Rigs O' Barley", respectively. The instrumental parts of the score are based on traditional Scottish, Irish, and English tunes such as "Mirie it is while sumer ilast" the oldest surviving middle English song fragment, [1] the "Struan Robertson's Rant" strathspey (plays while Sgt. Howie searches the ship for Rowan), [2] the "Tenpenny Bit" jig (Plays while Lord Summerisle and MacGregor prepare for the festivities), [3] and "Drowsy Maggie" reel (plays while Sgt. Howie searches a house for Rowan). [4] "Chop Chop" is based on the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons". "Procession" is an arrangement of the tune of the Child Ballad "Fause Foodrage". [5] The psychedelic guitar solo which plays while Sgt. Howie is looking for Rowan, on the track "Searching for Rowan," is based on the melody of the Jacobite song "Hey, Johnnie Cope, are Ye Waking Yet?". Although some of the music is Scottish, and the film is set in the Hebrides, no traditional Scottish Gaelic numbers are featured.
The soundtrack was unavailable until a 1998 release on Trunk Records of a mono album dubbed from the music and effects tapes at Pinewood, from the shorter original cut of the film (hence missing the song "Gently Johnny"). [6] It was not until 2002 that Silva Screen Records released a stereo version using cues from the tape held by Gary Carpenter, mixed with recordings from the first Trunk Records release. This release includes "Gently Johnny" and the missing lines from "Willow's Song". [7]
A sheet music album of the soundtrack is also available, published by Summerisle Songs. Titled The Wicker Man Complete Piano Songbook, the book features all the songs and music from the film, arranged for piano, voice and guitar.
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [8] |
BBC | favorable [9] |
Head Heritage | very favorable [10] |
Jason Nickey, reviewing the album for Allmusic picked "Gently Johnny", "Maypole" and "Willow's Song" as highlights. "Paul Giovanni, together with Magnet," he writes, "uses flutes, lyres, harmonicas, and guitars in a mixture of original and traditional material to create a mysterious and sinister world that comes to life apart from the film." [8] Chris Jones wrote for BBC that just as the "cult" film "has now been rightly placed in the pantheon of great celluloid [...] its soundtrack deserves the same accolades." He notes that the "lilting (how come folk is always lilting?) melodies of numbers like Corn Rigs, Gently Johnny and Willow's Song are stuffed with a vaguely sinister eroticism, reflecting Woodward's unease as he scratches the tranquil surface of the island community to discover its sinister secret." "Maybe it takes a foreigner to get to the dark heart of much of our indigenous music," he concludes, "but it's a darkness suffused with beauty. Coupled to the original incidental music [...] this is a vital document of a time when the UK could still produce classic cinema. It's also a really fine album." [9] TightPurpleShirt reviewed the 1998 version of the album for Head Heritage and called it an "incredible soundtrack", despite criticizing the exclusion of "Gently Johnny". He notes that the tracks "cover everything from traditional folk music, performed by MAGNET [...] Some very, very surreal sound effect sequences and some mildly psyche [sic] guitar work [.T]here is also a track called Hum which if extended across a whole CD could be marketed by any number of drone groups as their best album to date. The whole things a head fuk [sic] from start to finish and its glorious." [10]
In 2013, Spin ranked the soundtrack 11th on their list of "40 Movie Soundtracks That Changed Alternative Music", writing: "The soundtrack from American songwriter Paul Giovanni reveled in the British folk idiom that bands like Pentangle had revitalized, weaving together standards as well as 'Baa Baa Black Sheep,' no doubt influencing freak-folkers like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. Yet for all its pastoral sounds, there was an uncanny eeriness lurking at the edges, a childlike innocence mixed with malice, anticipating the aesthetics of both Animal Collective and Broadcast." [11]
In 2004 indie/folk/electronia experimenter Momus and French singer Anne Laplantine collaborated on an album of songs Summerisle Momus / Nick Currie said the project acknowledged "a tip of the hat there to The Wicker Man's Lord Summerisle" without being about the film or some kind of concept album, [12] rather it featured an imagined folk-pop born of the tradition imagined by Magnet, as an alternative Scots culture let loose in global electronica like so many other folk musics, as such "The Wicker Man stands in relation to [the album] Summerisle", the film forming a "parallel world" for which he felt a great nostalgia, "‘Summerisle’ indulges a different nostalgia, the yearning of the wandering Scot for his homeland. A nation, a home, a golden age: these are inevitably fictions, so why not make them far-fetched and utopian fictions instead of limited, fact-smitten ones?". [13]
Some of the songs (most notably "Willow's Song") have been covered by contemporary artists, such as the Nature and Organisation, [14] Mediæval Bæbes, [15] Doves, Faith and the Muse, Isobel Campbell and the Sneaker Pimps - whom also covered the song Johnny. [16] [17] A cover of "Fire Leap" was released as a single by Gazelle Twin with the NYX drone choir. [18]
A live performance of the soundtrack at the 30th annual Brosella Folk Festival in Brussels, on 8 July 2006, underlined the cult status of the film and its music. The organizers were looking for something to mark three decades of the festival and as such, for the final act of the evening, they assembled "The Wicker Band". This ensemble included many eminent performers from the thriving Flemish folk-rock scene, as well as the singer Jacqui McShee, founding member and continual reviver of the 1960s folk-jazz band Pentangle, and fellow ex-Pentangle member Danny Thompson. The band performed music from the film, plus a few selected songs from the folk and singer-songwriter repertoire that seemed to fit the mood before, shortly after midnight, the director's cut of the film was shown on a giant screen. [19]
The Wicker Man is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee. The screenplay is by Anthony Shaffer, inspired by David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual, and Paul Giovanni composed the film score.
"John Barleycorn" is an English and Scottish folk song. The song's protagonist is John Barleycorn, a personification of barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it: beer and whisky. In the song, he suffers indignities, attacks, and death that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting.
Pentangle are a British folk rock band, formed in London in 1967. The original band was active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and a later version has been active since the early 1980s. The original line-up, which was unchanged throughout the band's first incarnation (1967–1973), was Jacqui McShee (vocals); John Renbourn ; Bert Jansch ; Danny Thompson ; and Terry Cox (drums).
A willow is any of the several hundred species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus Salix.
Herbert Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s as an acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter. He recorded more than 28 albums and toured extensively from the 1960s to the 21st century.
John Renbourn was an English guitarist and songwriter. He was best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence (1967–1973). Several albums were credited to the John Renbourn Group. He worked later in a duo with Stefan Grossman.
A rose is a perennial plant of the genus Rosa, or the flower it bears.
Paul Giovanni was an American playwright, actor, director, singer and musician. Giovanni wrote the music for the 1973 British horror film The Wicker Man.
Anne Patricia Briggs is an English folk singer. Although she travelled widely in the 1960s and early 1970s, appearing at folk clubs and venues in Britain and Ireland, she never aspired to commercial success or to achieve widespread public acknowledgment of her music. However, she was an influential figure in the British folk revival, being a source of songs and musical inspiration for others such as A. L. Lloyd, Bert Jansch, Jimmy Page, The Watersons, June Tabor, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, and Maddy Prior.
Magnet was a band formed for the purpose of recording the soundtrack to the 1973 film The Wicker Man. The band was assembled by musician Gary Carpenter to perform songs composed by New York songwriter Paul Giovanni. Originally under the moniker Lodestone, later changed to "Magnet" because of a conflict with another band, the group included Peter Brewis, Michael Cole, Andrew Tompkins (guitars), Ian Cutler (violin), Bernard Murray (percussion) and finally Carpenter himself. Carpenter, Brewis and Cole had recently graduated from The Royal College of Music in London, and Tompkins, Cutler and Murray were all members of Carpenter's band Hocket. The band featured Giovanni on guitar and vocals for many tracks; he also appeared in the film in various scenes.
The Wicker Man is a 2006 horror film written and directed by Neil LaBute and starring Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Beahan, Frances Conroy, Molly Parker, Leelee Sobieski and Diane Delano. It is a remake and reimagining of the 1973 British film The Wicker Man, but also draws from its source material, David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual. The film concerns police officer Edward Malus, whose ex-fiancée Willow Woodward informs him that her daughter Rowan has disappeared and asks for his help in her search. When he arrives at the island in the Pacific Northwest where Rowan was last seen, he suspects something sinister about the neo-pagans who live there. The film received negative reviews and grossed $38.8 million.
"Willow's Song" is a ballad by American composer Paul Giovanni for the 1973 film The Wicker Man.
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Gary Carpenter is a British composer, of concert music and film scores, and also operas and musicals. He is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music. He was Associate Music Director for the film The Wicker Man, putting together the ensemble Magnet for the occasion. Until 2021, he was a Director of the Ivors Academy. During the 2018-19 season, he was Composer in Association with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
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