Like the librar­i­an said … every­one respects the dead

Yester­day I got the dvd of Kids for £2, and I watched it with Vicky & Tukru. V had some­how never seen it, and the last time T had seen it was about 10 years ago when her down-with-the-kids history teach­er had played it at school (yeah, Finland …). When I was about 15 or so it was my all-time favour­ite film along with Heav­enly Creatures. I don’t know what that says about me. If I’d seen the film now as a 26 year old, it wouldn’t amaze me (maybe creep me out instead). I think what made the impact on me at the time was that in the age before cheap DVDs and easy down­load­ing, it was the first really raw film I’d seen, and I was obvi­ously long­ing for rawness at the time. Glossy Holly­wood high school films had abso­lutely no relev­ance to my life.

I went to an all-girls school in a decay­ing indus­tri­al town in south­ern England, there were no cheer­lead­ers, no-one remotely cared about sports teams or any kind of prom and I didn’t live in a bland but comfort­able suburb with aver­age married parents. No-one I knew got HIV, and as far as I know (or at least hope), I don’t think there was any date-rape going on, but some­thing obvi­ously reson­ated. I taped it off chan­nel four and watched it again and again. The thing that actu­ally registered the most though, was the soundtrack. There’s not many films where you’d see a scene of someone getting beaten up to the sound of Daniel John­ston, and I was intro­duced to quite a few bands (or finally got to hear the music of bands/​artists whose names I’d heard- dialup days, kids!) from the soundtrack: Sebadoh/​Folk Implo­sion, Slint and Daniel John­ston

Soundtrack list­ing: (there are a lot more songs in the film that aren’t on there for some reas­on)

1. Daniel John­ston – “Casper”
2. Deluxx Folk Implo­sion – “Daddy Never Under­stood”
3. Folk Implo­sion – “Noth­ing Gonna Stop”
4. Folk Implo­sion – “Jenny’s Theme”
5. Folk Implo­sion – “Simean Groove”
6. Daniel John­ston – “Casper the Friendly Ghost”
7. Folk Implo­sion – “Natur­al One”
8. Sebadoh – “Spoiled”
9. Folk Implo­sion – “Crash”
10. Folk Implo­sion – “Wet Stuff”
11. Lo-Down – “Mad Fright Night”
12. Folk Implo­sion – “Raise the Bells”
13. Slint – “Good Morn­ing, Captain”

(Deluxx) Folk Implo­sion- Daddy Never Under­stood

Sebadoh- Spoiled

Daniel John­ston- Casper the Friendly Ghost

And of course … (altho you don’t really hear it in the film)

Slint- Good Morn­ing Captain (you need this album)