6. Angelo BadalamentiThe Straight Story
First of all, it’s just such beautiful music. It soothes the soul. It makes you feel kind of free and kind of unburdened, in some respects, in the way that Alvin [Straight] was. He’s got to do this thing, and it doesn’t matter what’s in the way. It’s almost like a conviction, that you’re certain you’re going to do something, and I feel that in the music. It’s beautiful and lilting, a little bit, but there’s a determination to it which you almost feel people don’t have these days: "No. That’s too difficult. I’m not going to bother."
The story unfolds without being blunt. You learn about this guy’s blighted life, and at each stop he comes to he shares a little story with whoever he meets. You start to build a picture of this guy. It’s beautiful, the way that everything works to support the end goal. I saw Angelo Badalamenti play in Belgium a few years ago. The whole show was absolutely sublime. It was brilliant. He had Siouxsie Sioux come out and do a few songs, as she’d done a film with him at that point, The Edge Of Love. She also sang ‘Who Will Take My Dreams Away?’ which Marianne Faithfull sang in The City Of Lost Children. It was also in Girl On The Bridge as well. That’s a beautiful song. So haunting.
