#917. Warrior, The National, “About Today”

 

2011 ended up being a crazy year for me. The last movie I saw in theaters was Warrior that September. But, oh was I rewarded.

Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton play brothers who end up fighting in an MMA tournament by the end of the movie, and of course in the final round they face each other. It’s the definition of classic filmmaking, possibly the last time Hollywood revisited its Golden Age successfully. 

It’s a sequence pumped full of drama, and the denouement is pitch perfect, in part because of the song playing in the background, “About Today” by The National.

Now, because by 2011 pop rock had all but disappeared from radio and pop culture in general, I knew nothing at all about The National, and didn’t pursue them on their own terms for more than a decade. In fact it wasn’t until last year when they had one of those compilation discs attached to a music magazine that I finally did, promoting their latest CD, which I also subsequently got.

If all this had played out just a few years prior, it would’ve been very different. 2011 was the beginning of a whole downturn in my circumstances, so I had very little money to play with by the time I discovered The National. I was grateful for having that moment in Warrior with them, and the memory to keep them in mind long enough to get back to them at some point.

#916. Lineage of Song “All Along the Watchtower”

U2

Bob Dylan

Jimi Hendrix

In the final episode of Battlestar Galactica, the Jimi Hendrix version of “All Along the Watchtower” plays in the closing moments, which for me was a perfect note to end on, and one of my favorite moments of a TV show or movie using an established song to incorporate into a scene.

Otherwise this one’s pretty straightforward. It’s a Bob Dylan song Jimi Hendrix quickly adopted, and then later U2 did their take, too, and they’re all great. This is the strength and purity of artists embracing great music and just keeping it going. It’s the whole point.