Some music lends itself to writing to, and the songs on this soundtrack definitely qualify on that front. Taken collectively, the music here has a hazy and wistful but somehow light air which goes down a treat; moreover, listened to on record, it retrospectively imbues Garden State with hues and tinges and fully-realised resonances that were only hinted at on my original watching of the film itself. I'm not going to be a snob about this record - it's darn good.
A'course, much of it was already well familiar to me (and I've actually heard the whole soundtrack before, albeit only as background music, as, for better or for worse, the circles I move in do tend to be filled with fans - it even had some rotation in the Review office at one stage). Running through those songs:
* Coldplay - "Don't Panic". I'm old enough to have liked this the first time round (ie, when Parachutes came out) and to have identified it even at the time as a minor pleasure but a pleasure still. A nice opener.
* The Shins - "Caring Is Creepy". Well, how could I not have heard this one somewhere along the line?
* The Shins - "New Slang". See immediately above; also, this is one of those that has seriously affected my recollected impressions of the film.
* Nick Drake - "One Of These Things First". For me, this would've come around at about the same time as the first Coldplay album - late high school. It's never particularly stood out from the rest of Drake's songbook - but of course that's no kind of criticism...and it fits well here.
* Thievery Corporation - "Lebanese Blonde". One from the radio, I think - I couldn't have named it before I came across it on this soundtrack, but would have instantly recognised the song any time it came on.
* Simon & Garfunkel - "The Only Living Boy In New York". I think I already had Bridge Over Troubled Water on vinyl at the time, but I've always thought of this song as the centrepiece of the mix cd on which David gave it to me (cd entitled "Hope Is Important"), which is also where I first heard --
* Iron and Wine - "Such Great Heights". Which ain't half as good as the Postal Service's original but is still as good as heck in its own way.
* Frou Frou - "Let Go". From the internet, and the other song which particularly reshapes my sense of the film for the better, at least while I'm listening to it.
(The rest is in a similar vein; I especially like Zero 7's "In The Waiting Line" and Cary Brothers' "Blue Eyes".)
