Nostalgia in the Down with Love soundtrack

Ewan McGregor broke into the big time with Trainspotting and has been immortalized as the image of the young Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars saga. But how do you think fans want to see him best? As the romantic poet singing My Song in Moulin Rouge. Renee Zellwegger was quite the discovery of Jerry MaGuire and was fantastic in Bridget Jones’s Diary but how do you think will she be remembered most? Singing and dancing as Roxie Hart in the Academy Award-winning Chicago.

So it was quite a delightful surprise to find that Ewan and Renee are singing and dancing again, and together this time around in the romantic comedy Down with Love. They do the song Here’s to Love at the end of the movie and they make you wonder. Why didn’t the producers make this homage to the Doris Day films from the ’60s into a true musical? The plot, the setting and the lead stars with their previous singing and dancing successes, provide lots of opportunities for musical numbers and the use of beautiful old songs from the era in the soundtrack.

Set in the ’60s, Down with Love is about an ahead-of-the-times feminist writer, Renee, who believes in career, sex and female power and not in love, and a playboy journalist, Ewan, who is determined to prove her wrong. Of course, love eventually proves both of them wrong. That only comes though after lots of situations that make you smile and which allows you to take a nostalgic trip to the innocent ’60s through a virtual fashion show of Audrey Hepburn and Doris Day-inspired clothes worn by Renee and the lovely music.

Renee and Ewan do perform Here’s to Love and there is a cha cha number by Xavier Cugat One Mint Julep in the movie, but the song that carries the day is Fly Me to the Moon, is also known as (In Other Words). Pop music lore has it that the song gained popularity because of the successful flight to space by astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth in 1962. The original version was recorded by Joe Harnell.

There are two used in the movie. One is the swing type by Frank Sinatra. The other is set in a bossa nova tempo and is done by Astrud Gilberto. Both were big hits among Pinoys during the ’60s and the movie will definitely bring back lots of memories of those romantic ballads which served as an antidote to the onslaught of Beatles and their ilk during the period. Kids then did not just dance to She Loves You, they also slow-dragged to Fly Me to the Moon.

I think of the Down with Love soundtrack as the perfect companion to the Michael Buble album. Like the movie, the style of the sensational Canadian artist has a refreshing sensibility unique to the ’60s and Buble admittedly channels the nonchalant approach to singing commonly associated with Sinatra and Bobby Darin.

If you have a multiple-CD rack, then you might as well add Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps for a really massive dose of late ’50s and early ’60s MOR pop. The two-CD set also has Fly Me to the Moon, this time around, it is by Julie London. And because the collection has a whopping 38 tracks by various artists, it also makes an excellent sampler for younger buyers interested in old songs. If you have only heard about but have never listened to Bobby Darin or Doris Day, then this is the album for you. If you grew up with these songs in your personal soundtrack, then now is the time to have them all together in a single album.

The Look of Love by Dusty Springfield, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and Moon River by Andy Williams, Oh! Pretty Woman and Only the Lonely by Roy Orbison, Blue Velvet by Bobby Vinton, The End of the World by Skeeter Davis, I Left My Heart in San Francisco by Tony Bennett, Only You by The Platters, Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again by Dionne Warwick, Fever by Peggy Lee, I Say a Little Prayer by Aretha Franklin, Chances Are by Johnny Mathis, Homeward Bound by Simon & Garfunkel, Stand by Me by Ben E. King, Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Doris Day and many others.