As a proud member of the proud class of ‘76, I am prepared to state that the collection of bong hits contained within constitutes one of the finest film soundtracks in the history of mankind. Dazed and Confused is the Citizen Kane of stoner films, and if today’s Millennials with their hippity-hoppity music don’t get it, well, let them eat Drake.
The soundtrack to 1993’s Dazed and Confused is a time capsule of sorts–a fond backwards glance to a golden age of 8-tracks, GTOs and Kiss. Every single one of these songs is imprinted in my DNA–had I sired a kid, his first words would have been, “Rock and roll, hoochie koo.”
Director Richard Linklater could have gone the hipster route and padded the soundtrack with songs by the New York Dolls, the Stooges or even the Velvet Underground. But that would have been missing the point. It was the rare small-town kid who listened to such bands, or even heard of them for that matter.
A case in point: during the summer of 1976 my older brother and I spent $1.99 on a variety store cut-out bin 8-track of 1969: The Velvet Underground Live. I don’t understand why we bought it–we’d never ever heard of them, or Lou Reed even. Anyway, we listened to a sing or two the way home, and promptly backed over it with dad’s car. It’s probably lying on the side of the road somewhere.
All of these songs are hard rockers; Sammy John’s “Chevy Van” may have been emblematic of the times, but you won’t find it here. Furthermore, 9 of the soundtrack’s 14 songs were born in the USA, and small wonder–the kids in the film were salt-of-the-earth Bicentennial Year graduates, and their preference in hard rock rant to American hard rock. Indeed, one of the abiding mysteries of the soundtrack is the notable absence of Grand Funk’s “We’re an American Band.”
Other songs are MIA, but not for the same reason. “Show Me the Way” off of Frampton Comes Alive! was the one of “official” go-to-songs for your average fumbling adolescent’s looking to get to third base, as was the Raspberries’ “Go All the Way,” another seduction standard not to be found on the LP. And call me crazy, but I wish Linklater had given a shout-out to Mott the Hoople’s anthemic “All the Young Dudes,” with its injunction to carry the teenage news.
As for the songs on the soundtrack, I have–as I’m sure we all do–some caveats. As much as I love Nazareth’s “Love Hurts,” it was strictly for the Boone’s Farm Crowd–your average gear head’s beverage of choice was “Hair of the Dog.” And as much as I love the Runaways–doesn’t everybody?–they got no radio play. I wouldn’t have even known who they were had I not run across their debut LP in the local record store. I carried it to the store clerk the same way you would a copy of Hustler magazine–that cover was a teen degenerate’s jerk-off dream,, and who gave a shit about the music? And nobody I knew listened to Sweet, even if “Fox on the Run” was a blockbuster. Nobody listened to T. Rex either. As for the Sweet, I’d have gone with “The Ballroom Blitz.”
Dazed and Confused is a perfect evocation of kids on the cusp of adulthood–Mitch makes out and smokes his first joint. Wooderson’s content to chase high school girls forever, and as for Slater, he seems destined for rehab or a tenure track position as a history professor. Randall “Pink” Floyd can’t decide whether to sing a stupid football team drug abstinence pledge, but in the meantime intends to hang out with his “loser” friends. Cynthia’s bound for great things, but may just hook up with Wooderson before the fall. Mike “I wanna dance!” Newhouse is a mess–he’s spend his high school career studying his ass off, only to discover he wants to dance. Kay is sure to end up with a PhD in Feminist Studies–her Girls’ bathroom deconstruction of Gilligan’s Island is definitely thesis material.
Dazed and Confused offers an idealized portrait of a more innocent time, but Linklater isn’t wearing blinders: one of the films most telling quotes comes from Cynthia, who says, “All I’m saying is that if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life… remind me to kill myself.”
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
