Anachronistic Music in "Dirty Dancing"

The book The Time of Our Lives: Dirty Dancing and Popular Culture, published in 2013, edited by Yannis Tzioumakis and Siân Lincoln, is a collection of scholarly essays about the movie.

The cover of the book
"The Time of Our Lives: Dirty Dancing and Popular Culture"

I already have published six blog articles about the book and its articles:

Time of Our Lives: Dirty Dancing and Popular Culture

Is Dirty Dancing a Musical?

Straightness and Dirtiness in Dirty Dancing

Generic Hybridity in Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing as a Teenage Rite-of-Passage Film

Dirty Dancing as Reagan-era Cinema and "Reaganite Entertainment"

Now I will review another of the book's articles -- "Dancing in the Nostalgia Factory: Anachronistic Music in Dirty Dancing", written by Tim McNelis.

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Tim McNelis

The book identifies Tim McNelis as follows:

Tim McNelis completed is PhD in film music at the University of Liverpool. His research focused on the role popular songs and musical performance play in regulating agency and constructing identity in US youth films. Tim has co-authored two essays with Elena Boschi. "'Same Old Song': On Audiovisual Style in the Films of Wes Anderson" has been published in New Review of Film and Television Studies, and "Seen and Heard: Visible Playback Technology in Film" will be published in a collection entitled Ubiquitous Musics.

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The movie Dirty Dancing takes place in 1963 and features many songs that had become popular by that time. However, some of the movie's songs were composed especially for the 1987 movie. The latter songs are anachronistic, which means that they did not belong to the story's time.

McNelis discusses a series of movies that preceded Dirty Dancing.

McNelis writes that the 1973 movie American Graffiti served as the "template" for the use of popular songs in nostalgic movies about the 1950s and 1960s.

While other films did not follow American Graffiti's song-per-scene structure, the did adopt similar audiovisual strategies. .... Each of the film's planned 48 scenes would run about two and a half minutes, or the length of a popular song .... The song-per-scene strategy kept the story constantly moving. ...

The inclusion of full pop songs gradually developed into a standard practice, becoming particularly important for cross-promotion or "synergy" in the age of MTV.

McNelis mentions other nostalgia movies that feature nostalgic music -- Grease, The Big Chill, Peggy Sue Got Married, Footloose, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and Some Kind of Wonderful.

He then names movies that feature both nostalgic music and anachronistic music. The 1983 movie Baby, It's You takes place in 1967 ...

... contains both period music and Bruce Springsteen songs from the 1970s. The Springsteen songs in this film are associated with Albert "Sheik" Capadilupo (Vincent Spano). This paring emphasizes themes of working-class New Jersey life that are present in the songs and reflect the character's own background.

Another film that uses anachronistic music in a slightly different way is Eddie and the Cruisers, set in 1983 but with significant flashbacks to the early 1960s. In this film, the music of fictitious rock star Eddie Wilson (Mechael Pare) and his band is actually performed by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Rather than resembling early 1960s rock 'n' roll music, however, the songs sound like Bruce Springsteen tributes ...

The makers of these two films consciously avoided making straight period films designed to evoke nostalgia.

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McNelis lists the song styles in Dirty Dancing as ....

"period" soul and pop from 1956-1969, contemporary pop, original composed score, Latin American dance music, and jazz.

McNelis quotes screenwriter as explaining that she included period music of two basic kinds, which she called "clean teen" music and "dirty dancing" music. The first kind represented Baby Houseman, respectively, "before and after her multi-faceted awakening (sexual, class, and otherwise)." In reverse order, songs of both kinds were played at the movie's very beginning.

1) The song "Be My Baby" was a "dirty dancing" song and was accompanied by images of "dirty dancing".

2) The song "Big Girls Don't Cry" was a "clean teen" song that introduced the story's beginning.

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McNelis analyzes the movie's anachronistic songs.

In my article here, I will not recount of his analyses of "Where Are You Tonight", "Overload" or "You Don't Own Me". These three songs are barely noticed and are new takes on older, period music.

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McNelis points out that Baby and Johnny are dancing while "Hungry Eyes" is playing on the soundtrack, but they are not dancing to that song. Rather, they are dancing to some other song or songs that the movie audience does not hear.

However, "Hungry Eyes" becomes source score as lyrical content and changes in volume seem to match onscreen events. At one point during the sequence, Penny moves the needle back to the beginning of a record. The visible record is not heard, but when she places the needle on the record, the volume of "Hungry Eyes" jumps up. This rise in volume also corresponds with the end of Johnny's dance instruciotns, and thus no longer needs to underscore dialogue, but the synchronization of the needle and the jump in volume is too obvious to ignore.

The first lyrical articulation of action occurs when Baby looks up at Johnny just as the chorus hits the word "hungry eyes".

Similarly, the lyrics "Now I've got you in my sights" are heard when Johnny is watching Baby and Penny dancing with each other.

Another lyrical match occurs when Johnny smiles and nods at Baby with the words "Now did I take you by surprise?" When the idea of Baby taking Penny's place was first proposed, Johnny did not believe that Baby could learn so quickly, and he now realizes that he was wrong. Baby has also taken Johnny by surprise in the respect that he is developing feelings for her.

This is insightful analysis! McNelis discusses also the song's soul-based saxophone and the singer's rough voice.

The application of the song "Hungry Eyes" to the movie's actions differs from the use of the period song. The characters do not hear or react to "Hungry Eyes", but the song does emphasize particular moments of the action.

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McNelis writes that the anachronism of the song "Yes" is "flaunted".

The scene is played for laughs, with the unabashed anachronism of the keyboards and production of the song underlining Lisa's role in the film. -- she is a more traditional and shallow girl than Baby, only concerned with her appearance and attractiveness. The song's anachronism further emphasizes Lisa's disinterest in politics and social problems. ....

this is re-enforced when the music bridges a cut to a 45-rpm on a turntable in Johnny's room. The needle reaches the end of the groove, and the music stops mid-song when the needle lifts. However, this seems more like a visual justification for a change of music than an actual suggestion that the record is the source of "Yes".

A new record then falls onto the turntable: "In the Still of the Night". This more "authentic" music brings the audience back to the serious romance and historically relevant concerns of Baby and Johnny.

In this case, historical accuracy is sacrificed in service of creating humor by employing a contemporary pop song at a high volume to structure the scene and comment on characters and events. This task is made easier because the music has no source in the diegesis, and the music returns to the period music seamlessly through the cut to the record player, ensuring that even examples of more blatant anachronisms are well-regulated within the film's overall representational strategies.

Again, very insightful analysis!

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The song "The Time of My Life", writes McNellis, "has the most problematic relationship with the diegesis and, arguably, renders the whole consideration of anachronistic music moot."

However, McNellis explains that this orginal song could be adapted to the movie's earlier moments. The instrumental is heard lightly when Baby overhears Max Kellerman telling the waiters how to treat the female guests and is heard again when Baby is practicing the lift in the lake. The song ...

... thus becomes a leitmotif sigifying Baby's coming of age. This arrangement of the song also prepares the audience for the later occurrence of the full-length, overly anachronistic version.

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The article's conclusion discusses commercial considerations, such as promotion and profit that were achieved by the use of some new songs. Younger consumers liked new songs.

McNelis explains that Dirty Dancing is more than a nostalgia movie. Rather, it is "an audiovisual production distinctly of its time".

McNelis's article is superb.

I did not find the article on the Internet. As far as I know, it can be read only in the book.