Chants des Îles

Three songs and an old mystery, solved

A good movie is a great thing but a good movie with a great soundtrack can be everything. One of my favorites is The Little Thief, which tells the story of a troubled, rebellious but naive young girl who struggles to gain independence and a sense of self-worth, and, after a lot of missteps, finally does. I first saw it when I was fourteen and identified with the character and used her rebellion as a kind of model for my own. The movie had good, catchy, rousing music and hearing it reminded me of how I wanted to be. It both opens with and goes out to the same hopeful, triumphant tune: Dans La Troupe—which is exciting to hear at the beginning, and terrifically moving at the end.

Growing up, songs from this movie and many others became like anthems to me, and they still bring up the same feelings and associations. Once you connect a song with a scene in a movie it becomes more than a song; it becomes the movie and you when you saw the movie and how you felt then and how it’s been for you since.

Dans La Troupe:

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There was another song from The Little Thief, part of a choral medley—that I really loved but couldn’t find out anything about—until one day thirty years later when I recognized it in a Russian folk tune that I had come across while looking for something to play on the violin. The Russian version is called Five Rubles, and I played it and loved it but it took awhile to realize why I loved it so much. I’ve heard this before, I know I have, but where? I completely lost my shit when I finally realized it was the song.

Here’s the movie version, followed by my own:

Five Rubles:

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There’s a scene in the Éric Rohmer movie, Pauline à la Plage, where Pauline and her boyfriend are slow dancing to a song that’s playing on the record player. It’s a a waltz; very pretty and pretty cheesy and perfect for the scene. As a teenager I was crazy about this song and wished I could get ahold of it, but it was from a fake album—of music written expressly for the movie—that wasn’t for sale. The fake album was called Chants des Îles. This should have given me a clue (that the song was rooted in Caribbean music) but it wasn’t until one momentous day just a few months ago, when I out driving around with my family, listening to one of James’s old CD’s—a recording of traditional Caribbean music—that I recognized the melody in a popular Calypso tune. I became tremendously excited: “I can’t believe it! It’s Chant des Îles! I found it!! I found it!!” I yelled, scaring everyone in the car. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

Chants des Îles:

And the Calypso tune that I heard it in. It’s a different rhythm, and maybe you’ll think I’m tripping, but it’s the same melody, I swear:

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So yeah, movie soundtracks can be everything, and in my life they’ve often ended up outlasting what seemed to be more important things. Like who I had first watched the movie with, or how I was feeling at the time. I went to a lot of movies on dates, as a teenager, but they weren’t very fun, because it was torture to do nothing more than sit next to a cute guy—I mean, my god—and pretend to follow the story of the movie. But tortured longing be damned; I still got the music—scores of it.

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I’m guessing most people have favorite songs or soundtracks from movies, especially the ones they first saw as kids. I’d love to hear yours

…unless it’s from Frozen.

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