Say Something New: i find it hard to take/ when people run in circles

Reflecting my recent trend of listening to lots of piano centered songs, here's another. Originally a Tears For Fears classic, Gary Jules gave a brilliant rendition of it for a film called Donnie Darko. A show I watched recently, which is actually pretty good and enjoyable save for the fact that it's utterly unexplainable on its own without surreptious extra reading provided on the dvd's extras section to figure out everything.

Decidedly more omninous and foreboding than the original, Jules stripped down version sears with a darkly attractive piano melody and a steady voice that pays perfect justice to the rather nihilist lyrics. I like the paricularly nuanced and steadily jaded sound, and the mellow cello that comes on a minute and a half in is simply brilliant.

Just like how 12 Monkeys, another one of my favourite films also dealing with time travel, made Louis Armstrongs' " What A Beautiful World" even more poignant, tying together Donnie Darko and " Mad World" creates a resonance of themes that echo and enhance each other. I hope to see more of such fitting combinations of films and music in every new show I watch, but they dont come often enough.

GARY JULES & MICHAEL ANDREW - MAD WORLD ( COVER)

Click to read more about how this cover came about, and the band Tears For Fears' comments on it. The soundtrack costs S$40+ at HMV...