Soundtracking: Tarantino's Best Song Cues
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 8:00AM by Chris Feil
A new Tarantino film brings with it a new batch of expected side dishes: takedowns, hyperboles, talk of Oscar potential. As for the content of the film itself, Quentin Tarantino never fails to deliver a distinct musical prowess along with the zippy dialogue and ironic violence. A dancing Leonardo DiCaprio and a groovy Margot Robbie from the trailers already promise that Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood will be no exception. Before we get to that film, let’s look back at the best song cues from Tarantino’s films...
10 [Ennio Morricone placehoder] from [the entire Tarantino]
How are you supposed to pick a single Morricone needle drop from a career riddled with them? Repurposing Morricone scores (not to mention the occasions that the composer has leant QT’s films an original tune) are even more common to this filmography than shots of women’s feet. While Soundtracking is more about songs than scores, to have excluded the use of preexisting Morricone would feel like an omission here, so consider this your catch-all.
9 The Hateful Eight - “There Won’t Be Many Coming Home” by Roy Orbison
It only takes three grueling hours for Tarantino to find his thesis in The Hateful Eight, but when he does, it’s briefly convincing enough to make you think maybe everything before was worth it. How is it that Roy Orbison always sounds so ominous in movies?
8 Django Unchained - “Who Did That to You?” by John Legend
The rare original track for a Tarantino film! And it should have been nominated that year. John Legend’s vocal is so in tune to the elevated sleaze that the auteur was chasing with this film, and it’s rousing both when and how the movie needs it to be.
7 Death Proof - “Chick Habbit” by April March
If the Grindhouse pastiche was something Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez ultimately had to sell and sell hard to an unfamiliar audience, then Tarantino’s song choice here does 80% of the work. Not only does it tell you what the thing is, it makes it seem so damn fun.
6 Jackie Brown - “Across 110th Street” by Bobby Womack
The iconography! This one is perhaps the selection among the list that exists just for the pure cinema of it, not needing any added narrative depth or context. Pam Grier’s idolized image and a tongue-in-cheek recreation of The Graduate’s opening shots are enough and they are rapturous.
5 Kill Bill Vol. 1 “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” by Nancy Sinatra
One of the most subtle ways the film tells you that it’s both a western and a warped eulogy. Nancy Sinatra invokes diva worship, but the song’s tone suggests retreat. The song follows horrific violence, and you can feel the film recoiling with its melody, preparing to pounce again.
4 Reservoir Dogs - “Stuck in the Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel
One of the first announcements of Tarantino’s singular, bloodthirsty voice, an affable earworm song such as this underscoring a man having his ear lobbed off. People forget how disturbing this song choice was at the time because [gestures widely at the career that followed] - but it’s an iconic moment of early 90s shock cinema.
3 Pulp Fiction - “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” by Urge Overkill
The perfect song to snort heroine that you mistake for cocaine to. Much of what makes Tarantino’s music choices so perfect is how he distills the whole aura of his film in a single song, and this was the first (and some might say most iconic) example of that. It speaks to Uma Thurman’s Mia, the film as a whole, and Tarantino’s lurid perspective all at once.
2 Inglourious Basterds - “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” by David Bowie
But you want to talk about iconography! Tarantino is unafraid to reuse songs memorable for other films, but to use one with the film’s title as the song’s title is another layer of nerve. If it wasn’t already clear that Melanie Laurent’s Shoshana was a superhero, Tarantino gives her this fabulous moment to luxuriate in her own power. A thunderous moment to kick down the doors of the film’s third act.
1 Kill Bill Vol. 1 - “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” by Hotei
This is what the Tarantino experience sounds like. It will be superimposed over reels celebrating his career until he dies and after. A definitive sound that also hypes us for the most epic battle sequence of a filmography that’s loaded with them. But it also works brilliantly for the context of the film: if the Nancy Sinatra track defines Thurman’s Bride for her contemplative and methodical side, this track represents her coolly vicious duality.
All Soundtracking installments can be found here!
Reader Comments (12)
I figured Kill Bill Vol. 1 HAD to figure into this list (rightfully so). But where was Pulp Fiction's twist dance off???
The opening and closing scenes of Jackie Brown are Tarantino's finest hours.
Assuming that this is "sequences in Tarantino movies that play like amazing music videos" please can I suggest -
1) Malcolm McDowell - About Her - Kill Bill: Vol. 2
2) Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich - Hold Tight - Death Proof
From this particular list - Booby Womack and Jackie Brown (and Pam Grier) all the way...
The above should be Malcolm McLaren, by the way (obviously)... oops!
Poor 5,6,7,8s. Although, if I'm being honest, my top ten would just be every cue in Jackie Brown. Unbelievable soundtrack, especially the Delfonics tracks.
Good choices.
My two favorites are both from Kill Bill Vol. !:
Twisted Nerve by Bernard Herrmann
Woo Hoo ( uhu uhuhu ) by The 5 6 7 8's
The scenes without that music are just unthinkable
I have a lot of problems with Tarantino, but I'll freely admit the man knows his way around a song sequence. That Jackie Brown opening and the Urge Overkill tune in Pulp Fiction. That's some great stuff.
A good list. But I think the opening of Jackie Brown has lots of significance for the film it opens. Jackie's way of hanging back, and then realising she's late and having to run to get to her desk, is a microcosm of her theme in this film: a middle-aged woman who has drifted for too long in life and must now seize her moment before it's too late.
@Edward L. 👏👏👏
Thank you for that words to my favorite Tarantino movie.
César Gaytán: Great to hear you like it too!
I saw both Kill Bills in the theater and when that Nancy Sinatra song came on (which I had never heard before), I knew I was in for a RIDE.
This is a great list. If your intentions were to make us at least go to youtube and watch these, then you succeeded. I will be watching Jackie Brown AGAIN soon thanks to this list. It’s my favorite of his films and the opening sequence is perfect. Thanks for this.