"SHAPE OF MY HEART" STING (1993)

This month, the Mental Jukebox revisits the movie soundtracks of the nineties. The music I’m highlighting are some of my personal favorites. In many cases, the movies themselves were huge for me as well. But the focus will still be on the music – as always. Let’s bring on the throwback classics, the grunge, the gangsta rap, and the indie gems. #31DaysOf90sMovieSongs

Movie: Leon: The Professional

By the release of Ten Summoner’s Tales, Sting had veered from his rock roots with The Police and toward a softer, quieter musical expression. His previous record. Soul Cages was highly introspective. I much prefer the demeanor of The Dream of the Blue Turtles and Nothing Like the Sun to Soul Cages and Ten Summoner’s Tales. But there are some real treasures on the latter. In the wake of the grunge era, Sting turned to jazz and blues for inspiration – and even flamenco, as he did on my favorite track off the album.

If songs like “Shape of My Heart” prove anything, it’s that, no matter how slow or quiet the music gets, Sting’s exploration of different genres continues to inform his own approach. While The Police found inspiration from reggae and punk, “Shape of My Heart” dabbled in flamenco. It’s a beautiful, classical guitar-driven track with some of the artist’s finest lyrics ever written. Sting used the metaphor of a card player to describe life and love, which gave Leon: The Professional more gravitas as the song unraveled over the end credits.

“I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier. I know that the clubs are weapons of war. I know that diamonds mean money for this art. But that's not the shape of my heart.”

"MEXICO" JAMES TAYLOR (1975)

The decade in which I was born has given me a strange perspective on its music. I discovered pretty much all of the 70’s sounds – from prog rock to punk to disco – well after they came into the world. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that I discovered what I was missing. I would characterize the decade as one where budding genres leaped off their inspiration pads and came to fruition. For the month of February, Mental Jukebox will feature some of these gems with a different 70’s song each day. #28DaysOf70sSongs

James Taylor’s version of folk has straddled two sides of the emotional spectrum: happy and sad. Songs like “How Sweet It is” and “Your Smiling Face” were uplifting, but more often JT was hanging out on the other end of spectrum as evidenced by signature tracks like “Fire and Rain” and “You’ve Got a Friend”. “Carolina in My Mind” and “Country Road” would’ve been light and airy if they were sung by someone else, but there’s an inescapable sadness in the way Taylor sings those classics. Thankfully, that isn’t the case with “Mexico”. The border town fantasy sounds like a place you want to escape to, not escape from.

This is my favorite JT song of all time. Having harmony masters David Crosby and Graham Nash singing backing vocals certainly didn’t hurt. But it was JT’s acoustic guitar that was the musical highlight and the heartbeat of this song. From the opening sequence to the end refrain, he found a way to create a melodic masterpiece out of these unusual chord progressions—an uncommon achievement for pop music at the time. And the best thing about it, “Mexico” still holds up so well more than four decades later.

“Way down here, you need a reason to move. Feel a fool running your stateside games.”

"SO FAR AWAY" CAROLE KING (1971)

The decade in which I was born has given me a strange perspective on its music. I discovered pretty much all of the 70’s sounds – from prog rock to punk to disco – well after they came into the world. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that I discovered what I was missing. I would characterize the decade as one where budding genres leaped off their inspiration pads and came to fruition. For the month of February, Mental Jukebox will feature some of these gems with a different 70’s song each day. #28DaysOf70sSongs

There’s a category of music that I like to think of as “greater later” tunes. These artists and albums are less desirable to us early on. Some might even be repulsive. But later in life, we have a change in perspective. The songs we once dismissed become the ones we embrace. As an 80’s kid, Carole King’s songs were still making their rounds throughout my life. I don’t know the first time I heard Tapestry, but its songs have always been lurking – on tv shows, in doctor’s offices, on Lite FM. I thought it was old people music. Well, now I must be old because I think Tapestry is a masterpiece. It’s the great American songbook, stacked from top to bottom with unforgettable songs like “So Far Away”.

Why the change in heart? I think I’ve come to recognize how hard it is to write a really good song. There’s so much meaningless trash out there and so few songs that have an earnestness to them. I don’t just mean the earnestness of the lyrics. I’m referring to everything about the song. The way it’s sung. The way it’s played. This is the beauty of Tapestry and “So Far Away”. It’s one of the most honest expressions about the isolation of being on the road and apart from the person that matters most. “So Far Away” is a song from a pop star perspective that’s just as relatable to the average person.

“I sure hope the road don't come to own me.”