Every week we compile a selection of music to sing you into the weekend and list them in a post called #bottomrightcorner. Sometimes new tunes, sometimes themed tunes and sometimes we ask a music aficionado to choose the tunes for us. Yesterday, 27 March, Quentin Tarantino — creator of an intertextual movie-planet as distinct as Mars — turned 50. Evidently, this week’s edition features only ‘tarantinoesque‘ anthems. As you may know, the director earned a lot of his cult status credibility — not only through clever non-linear storytelling, controversial yet exhilarating violence and unapologetic character creation — but through the use of well-timed music and popular culture references. Here’s a list of songs that make these films what they are; starting with 1992’s Reservoir Dogs and ending with 2012’s Django Unchained, they are paired with a quote that shows off Tarantino’s across-the-board knowledge of popular culture.
Reservoir Dogs – ‘Little Green Bag’ – George Baker Selection
Mr. Brown: Lemme tell you what ‘Like a Virgin’ is about. It’s all about this cooze who’s a regular fuck machine, I’m talking morning, day, night, afternoon, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.
Mr. Blue: How many dicks is that?
Mr. White: A lot.
Mr. Brown: Then one day she meets this John Holmes motherfucker and it’s like, whoa baby, I mean this cat is like Charles Bronson in the ‘Great Escape’, he’s digging tunnels. Now, she’s gettin’ the serious dick action and she’s feeling something she ain’t felt since forever. Pain. Pain.
Joe: Chew? Toby Chew?
Mr. Brown: It hurts her. It shouldn’t hurt her, you know, her pussy should be Bubble Yum by now, but when this cat fucks her it hurts. It hurts just like it did the first time. You see the pain is reminding a fuck machine what it once was like to be a virgin. Hence, ‘Like a Virgin’.
Pulp Fiction – ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ – Dusty Springfield
Vincent: But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
Jules: What?
Vincent: It’s the little differences. I mean they got the same shit t over there that they got here, but it’s just…just there it’s a little different.
Jules: Examples?
Vincent: All right, well you can walk into a movie theater in Amsterdam and buy a beer. And I don’t mean just like in no paper cup, I’m talking about a glass of beer. And in Paris, you can buy beer at MacDonald’s. You know what they call a…a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
Vincent: They got the metric system, they wouldn’t know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules: What’d they call it?
Vincent: They call it a Royale with Cheese.
Jules: [repeating] Royale with Cheese. What’d they call a Big Mac?
Vincent: Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
Jules: Le Big Mac. What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent: I dunno, I didn’t go into a Burger King. But you know what they put on french fries in Holland instead of ketchup?
Jules: What?
Vincent: Mayonnaise.
Jackie Brown – ‘Street Life’ – Randy Crawford
Louis: [exhales smoke, heavy coughing]
Melanie: You ok?
Louis: Just… gettin’ old.
[continues coughing]
Louis: Seems I can’t smoke all that now without coughing.
Melanie: Coughing’s good! It opens up the capillaries. You know, when you cough you’re pulling in air, or in this case – smoke, into parts of the lungs that don’t normally get used. So, coughing’s good, it gets you higher.
Kill Bill Vol. 2 – ‘Urami Bushi’ – Meiko Kaji
The Bride: When will I see you again?
Bill: That’s the title of my favorite soul song of the Seventies.
Death Proof – ‘Down in Mexico’ – The Coasters
Abernathy: Listen to this, the Circle A clerk has this month’s issue of Italian Vogue.
Lee: No way!
Abernathy: Way.
Lee: I can’t belive a fucking Circle A clerk carries Italian Vogue.
Abernathy: It doesn’t. It’s his own personal copy. He’ll let it go for 27 bucks.
Lee: [scoffs] 27 bucks?
Abernathy: What the fuck do you care? We’re talking about fucking per diem here. We found an issue of Italian Vogue in Lebanon, Tennessee. We’re lucky he’s not asking for fuckin’ Krugerrands. I’m getting it, and we’re splitting it three ways.
Lee: What? Me, you, and Kim?
Abernathy: No. Kim doesn’t give a shit about Italian Vogue. But Brandy will come in with us, and if she won’t, Tyson, her assistant, will.
Lee: Okay, but if anyone tears out any sheets that I want, you gotta make color Xerox copies of those pages, and I’m not talkin’ fuckin’ Kinko’s here either. You take it to the art department and have them do it fucking right.
Death Proof – ‘It’s So Easy’ – Willy DeVille
Zoë: Look, I know what I said when I said it. But when I said it, I didn’t know I’d ever come to America. And when I said it, if had I known that I was gonna come to America and have the chance to play ship’s mast on a fucking Vanishing Point Challenger, I would have added a however. Right?
Kim: Okay, oddly enough, I actually understood that, however, just because you’ve talked yourself into some stupid shit, doesn’t mean I’m out of my Goddamned mind. You need two people to play ship’s mast, and I ain’t playing.
Inglorious Basterds – ‘Cat People (Putting Out Fire)’ – David Bowie
Major Dieter Hellstrom: Now, gentlemen, around this time you could ask whether you’re real or fictitious. I, however, think that’s too easy, so I won’t ask that yet. Okay, my native land is the jungle. I visited America, but the visit was not fortuitous to me, but the implication is that it was to somebody else. When I went from the jungle to America, did I go by boat?
Bridget von Hammersmark: Yes.
Major Dieter Hellstrom: Did I go against my will?
Major Dieter Hellstrom: On this boat ride, was I in chains?
Major Dieter Hellstrom: When I arrived in America, was I displayed in chains?
Bridget von Hammersmark: Yes!
Major Dieter Hellstrom: Am I the story of the negro in America?
Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki: No.
Major Dieter Hellstrom: Well, then, I must be King Kong.
Django Unchained – ‘Who Did That to You’ – John Legend
Django Freeman: How you know Broomhilda’s first master’s was German?
Dr. King Schultz: Broomhilda is a German name. If they named her it stands to reason they’d be German.
Django: Lots of gals where you from named Broomhilda?
Schultz: Broomhilda is the name of a character in the most popular of all the German legends.
Django: There’s a story ’bout Broomhilda?
Schultz: Yes there is.
Django: Do you know it?
Schultz: Oh every German knows that story. Would you like me to tell you? [Django nods] Well, Broomhilda was a princess. She was the daughter of Wotan, god of all gods. Anyway her father is really mad at her.
Words: Christine Hogg
