The Trailer for Song Sung Blue
While watching the new movie Song Sung Blue last night, I thought about what I have written about the natural desire for music and about social bonding as the original evolutionary function of music. From the beginning to the end of this movie, music and musical storytelling provide the way to human social connection--for romantic lovers, for families, and for larger social groups.
If you haven't yet seen the movie, you might want to stop reading here to avoid spoiling the surprises that I will narrate in my brief scenario of the plot.
Song Sung Blue was written and directed by Craig Brewer based upon the 2008 documentary film of the same name by Greg Kohs. It tells the true story of Mike and Claire Sardina who performed in the Milwaukee area as a Neil Diamond tribute band named Lightning & Thunder. Hugh Jackman plays Mike. Kate Hudson plays Claire.
Mike was a Vietnam War veteran who came back from the war with emotional scars from his experiences. He became an alcoholic. His abusive personality led to divorce from his first wife. He struggled to support himself with part-time jobs as an auto mechanic. But his passion was singing as an impersonator of pop singers at dive bars, casinos, and the Wisconsin State Fair. It was not enough for him just to enjoy the music as a listener and singer. He had to perform on stage before an audience with whom he could resonate.
He met Claire at the State Fair, where she was performing as a Patsy Cline impersonator. Mike liked her singing, and he was attracted to her. She was a divorced mother of two. He introduced himself as someone celebrating the 20th year birthday of his sobriety. Previously, we have seen him at his Alcoholics Anonymous meeting speaking about his hope that he will become a successful performer, and thus save something good out of his otherwise broken life.
Claire suggests that he should sing as a Neil Diamond interpreter. They become romantically tied to one another. And they agree to form a Neil Diamond impersonation duo as "Lightning" (Mike) and "Thunder" (Claire). For both of them, singing as performers on stage who engage their audiences is their most exhilarating experience in life.
When they introduce their children to one another--Mike's teenage daughter Angelina, Claire's teenage daughter Rachel, and Claire's young son Dayna--the two teenagers are wary of one another, but eventually they warm up to one another by sharing their experiences within broken families.
Lightning and Thunder do have some musical gigs with small audiences for a few years, but their financial earnings are meagre. Finally, their big break comes when Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam--one of the hottest rock bands of the 1990s--asked them to perform as the opening act before a Pearl Jam performance. From that point on, they were playing to larger audiences.
Then, one day, Claire is planting flowers in the front yard of their house, and a car swerves erratically off the street behind her and runs her over. She has to have her left leg amputated at the knee. She struggles with despair and mental confusion from the drugs she must take. She and Mike begin to argue. Finally, Mike and the children decide that the best thing for Claire is that she be put into a psychiatric hospital. We see her at a therapy session with other patients, where she speaks about her love of the Lightning and Thunder performances as the only time when she feels joy.
Mike tries to find odd jobs, but he cannot perform as a singer without Claire. Rachel admits to Mike that she is four months pregnant. They talk about what should be done and decide it would be best for her to have the child and then give it up for adoption. But she says she needs her mother to help her do this.
Claire begins walking again with a prosthetic leg. And soon she is well enough to come home in time for Christmas. She reconciles with Mike. She urges Mike to join with her in going on Lightning and Thunder gigs again. She helps Rachel through her pregnancy and in giving up her child to the adopting couple.
Mike and Claire return to performing. Then, they are invited to perform at the Ritz Theatre in Milwaukee, where they will be the headliner the same night that Neil Diamond is performing in Milwaukee to a sold-out crowd. This will allow fans of Neil Diamond who cannot get tickets for his show to enjoy his music at the Ritz. The show at the Ritz is also sold out. Mike and Claire learn that Diamond has heard about them, and he wants to meet them after his performance.
Mike has experienced many heart attacks in his life, but he has refused treatment. Preparing for the Ritz performance, he has another heart attack in a bathroom, and as he collapses, he suffers a concussion when he hits his head on a sink. He somehow manages to regain consciousness, and then he cleans the blood off his head, and combs his hair to hide the bruise. He says nothing to Claire about what has happened, and she notices nothing wrong. (This is the one part of the movie that is implausible.)
As they are going into the theatre, Mike tells Claire that none of this would have been possible without her--that she has been everything to him. Claire does not realize that this is his farewell to her.
The concert is a great success. Afterwards, they drive to diner where they are to meet Diamond. But when they arrive, Mike is dead in the back seat of the car.
The next scene is the family preparing for Mike's funeral. At the funeral, Claire sings with a band and chorus behind her, her last performance to celebrate Mike, which moves everyone at the funeral to tears.
Sometime later, we see the family at home. The grieving has subsided, and there is even a slight feeling of serenity. We see Claire planting flowers again in the front garden of their home--"to add some beauty" she says.
At the same time, Dayna plays a recording of his stepfather that, much earlier in the story, was prepared to be sent to his AI group meeting. He tells them to try to make their lives better, and in doing so to make everything a little better. He then sings to them Song Sung Blue, and that's the final scene of the movie.
This last scene with Jackman singing Diamond's song to his AI group is powerful in evoking the theme of social bonding through musical performance and in pointing the audience back to the beginning of the movie. The movie as I and my wife saw it at the Celebration Theatre North in Grand Rapids began with Jackman appearing on the screen and speaking directly to us in the audience. He thanked us for coming to see the movie at the Celebration Theatre Grand Rapids, and he named the manager of the theater. The people in the theater were a little startled by this--as if Jackman were standing in front us and speaking to us. I assume this was done by an AI program to create a simulation of him speaking to us by name. Finally, he said that he hoped that someday he could meet us in person.
Jackman is known for his performances on stage in live musical theatre. So he was evoking that same experience of live performance by speaking to us in person, just as Mike and Claire performed their Neil Diamond singing before live audiences. The suggestion was that Hugh Jackson the singing actor is doing the same thing as Mike Sardina the Neil Diamond performer in striving for ecstatic social connection through musical performance and communal singing. At some parts of the movie, I heard some in the audience singing along with Lightning and Thunder. That's what I mean by saying that from beginning to end, this movie conveyed the feeling of social bonding between performers and audience through music.
Moreover, in all of the successful performances by Lightning and Thunder, the audiences joined the performance by singing and dancing themselves. Throughout most of the history of music, from our prehistoric ancestors to modern times, music was a collective activity of social bonding with no separation between active performers and passive audiences. It is only in recent centuries that we have seen this separation in musical performance, where audiences sit in darkened theaters to see and hear musical performers on a lighted stage or screen. In many classical music performances, audience members are expected to be completely silent except when they applaud. But in most popular musical performances today--from Neil Diamond to Taylor Swift--the performers actively encourage the audience to sing and dance along with them. That's a return to the original experience of music as a communal activity by which a social group created and affirmed its collective identity.
Social bonding through music occurred at multiple levels for multiple purposes in this movie. Music brought Mike and Claire together for mating and marriage. This is what Darwin called sexual selection through music, and he suspected that that was the original purpose of music.
Music also brought the whole Sardina family together. The movie makes a point of showing the Sardina children joyfully singing along with the rest of the audience at Mike and Clare's performances.
Music is important for funeral rituals, and we saw that in Claire's performance at Mike's funeral.
Music is also important for storytelling. Every Neil Diamond song is a story. And in this movie, the songs are selected for what they contribute to the story line of the movie.
Even in movies without singing in the story, there is a musical soundtrack--instrumental and vocal--that helps to tell the story that is visually enacted on the screen. Like music generally, musical storytelling promotes social bonding by telling stories about the lives people share.
(Previously, I have written about the importance of Howard Shore's music in sustaining the story-telling of the "Lord of the Rings" movies. Some people think the music make the movies even better than Tolkien's book.)
So in all these ways, Song Sung Blue helps us to think about the natural desire for social bonding through music.
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