Why So Serious?

"Want to see a magic trick?"

Do you know what James Newton Howard's most popular song is right now? I do. I found it while I was messing around his page on iTunes late last night. I got some money for music for Christmas, so I was on a mission to find and buy the best song I could find by James Newton Howard. Dark Knight was the top score, surprise surprise, and the most popular song to buy was Why So Serious?. Which is also a huge surprise, right? I was curious. Its a joint composition with Hans Zimmer (darn it all), but I decided to give it a shot and see why in the world this would be the most popular James Newton Howard song.

The thirty second clip was enough.

I was NOT expecting it by ANY means, but it left me wide eyed and completely drawn in. I lurched back to my senses and knew that even if this song is only a minute long, there's no way on God's green earth that I'm NOT buying this song. But I scored it pretty big. Its not one minute long, its NINE minutes long.

Why do you think that scene in the movie is so frightening? Why does it make everyone sink lower in their seats, their muscles tensing up, and waiting, their minds jumping ahead to what they're positive is about to happen. Why? The stories the Joker tells are a lot of it, yeah, because he's so calm yet completely mental, and that in itself is frightening.

But its the music that digs into your senses and tugs, hitting nerves here and pulling on strings there.

The movie would be nothing without the music. But the soundtrack has the same effect without the images as it did with them. This song especially. I don't need to have seen the movie to be freaked out by this song.

Just like how a director needs to know how to correctly show evil on a screen, James Newton Howard knows how portray evil in his music extremely well. And not only that, but he can scare you simply by listening to it without any of the movie it was written for. It sure worked for me. I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure my door was closed. I'd shift in my seat as the violins slide across the strings, jarring every single note.

It starts off with an elongated note from a single violin, and it takes a moment before you realize its an electric violin. And slowly, more violins join it, and together they go sliding ever so slowly up the scale, hitting every single mixed note in between each whole note, clashing with each other as they rise ... and then it sort of evens out, and they start off on this fluttery sound. I say fluttery, because there's no other way to describe it. It flits from one speaker to the other, and back again (its horrible if you're wearing headphones) ... the very quiet and distant rumble of drums, sounding freakishly like sheets of tin ... the raw and out of tune pang of the piano ... the crescendous blasts of the entire orchestra all at the same second, rising with incredible power... and then just... drops ... leaving only the bass and drums to fill the room... the quick, sharp slam of drums sounding incredibly like gunfire...

Well, you know me. I love to freak myself out, especially with music. That's the reason James Newton Howard is my favorite composer. He's the only one out there who has ever truly scared me with his music. His score to Signs is incredible. It beats the Dark Knight score by a long shot, although this song definitely is one of his best works.

So, no matter how frightening this song is, y'all HAVE to go buy it on iTunes, kay? I tried to find it on Imeem for you, but if I post the link it'll only do thirty seconds, and as awesome as that is, I think y'all need to hear the entire thing. If you have Imeem, great! Go add it to your playlist! But if not, just go find it on iTunes. Its worth it, y'all, its worth it.