My general policy, as stated to the right, is “no requests,” but I’ve been getting some great, interesting emails from people of late. This one I would have never predicted:“The girlfriend of a good friend of mine recently graduated from Northeastern U with a degree in Criminal Justice. She’s now pursuing a career as a private investigator. Her name is ______, she’s maybe 5’2” tall, weighs 110 lbs soaking wet, and she is a classic Connecticut suburban white chick, the kind you expect to find in a shopping mall, not the kind you expect to find surveilling insurance cheats.
Needless to say, if she’s going to survive on the mean streets of Boston as a PI, she’s going to need an ass-kicking theme song to play in her Mazda 626 on stakeouts. Megan’s theme song should be high-energy, fun, funky as hell, and pretty much turn her into Shaft. And unless you’re willing to send us an mp3, it should be the kind of thing that guys without a room full of vinyl can track down easily. Can you suggest a song?First of all, I’m not sure there’s any theme song that’s going to turn a 5’2″ “suburban white chick” into Shaft (though I find the desire for a racial transmorgification quite fascinating) but I like the idea of a theme song being able to reframe who we are and what impression we make on others.
Here’s my contribution…
Certain Lions and Tigers: El Soul Condor
From Soul Condor (Polydor, 1970)
I figure, if the point here is to take someone who might seem slight or easy to underestimate, lulling folks into complacency then smack them upside the head with some out-of-nowhere ridiculousness. That’s “El Soul Condor” in a nutshell…I’m pretty sure you’re not going to find too many covers of a Simon and Garfunkel song better than this. Certain Lions and Tigers is actually another permutation of Peter Herbolzheimer’s Rhythm Combination Brass band and ranks amongst the best of his ’70s fusion material (alongside Live From Onkel Po). Not sure if this will turn Charlotte into Shaft but if she run someone down in an alleyway, leaping garbage cans and dodging rats, I can hear this screaming in the background during that chase.
What would you suggest?
chatter