It’ll come as no surprise to any Jonathan Demme fan to find one of his films in our Unsung 80’s Soundtracks series. From the filmmaker who gave us Q Lazzarus’ “Goodbye Horses,” Bruce Springsteen’s Oscar-winning “Streets of Philadelphia,” and, of course, the electrifying sounds of Talking Heads in Stop Making Sense, comes 1986’s Something Wild, a quirky romantic comedy that gradually turns into…well, something quite wild.
Jeff Daniels stars as Manhattan businessman Charles Driggs, a relatively square individual whose uneventful life is upended when he meets the mysterious and free-spirited Lulu (Melanie Griffith). After she impulsively “kidnaps” him from a restaurant, the two head out on a road trip that becomes increasingly unpredictable adventure when they cross paths with Lulu’s dangerous ex-husband, Ray Sinclair (Ray Liotta). Funny, sexy, strange, and surprisingly unsettling, Something Wild is one of the great genre-shifting movies of the 1980s, and an early showcase for the late, great Liotta.
Demme fills his film with a remarkably eclectic mix of ’80s new wave, punk, rock, and pop, featuring Talking Heads, New Order, The Feelies, The Pretenders, and others. The music doesn’t simply serve as background decoration; it helps chart the film’s transformation from playful road movie to something darker. The soundtrack was released as a compilation alongside the film, and like so much of Demme’s work, it reflects a director with an unusually sharp ear for music, and a knack for finding exactly the right song for the moment.
