There’s this film version of Orwell’s masterpiece from, well, 1984, with Richard Burton as O’Brien. Originally, Dominic Muldowney was planned to write the soundtrack to this, but this plan was dropped, and eventually Eurythmics did it. Yet Muldowney’s original compositions were released on a wonderful CD (The Music of Oceania), and one of the tracks there is entitled “Party Rally”, where the ubiquitous “Oceania, 'tis for thee” anthem is sung.
Anybody has the lyrics to this song? It begins with something like “Strong and peaceful, wise and brave”.
Another track of which I’d love to have the lyrics is “The Hiking Song” (begins with “We are the children, builders of the future” or similar).
Thanks.
Hmm … I thought David Bowie did the soundtrack to “1984”, but that the movie was never released. Maybe, I’m thinking of a different version. In any case, I think he put most of those tracks on his “Diamond Dogs” album.
Isn’t this the one with Leif Garret as Winston and Kristy McNichols asJulia? I seem to remember Marlon Brando as “Big Brother” anda line of merchandising that did not pan out. The “Room 101” strap-on rat cage was particularly unsuccessful…
I actually have this film in my small collection. It stars Ricchard Burton, John Hurt, and Suzanna Hamilton. I skipped through it to find the various party rallys. The lyrics are too unintelligible to transcribe, and they’re not listed on the internet in any of the obvious places - google, lyrics servers, usenet, gnutella nets. However, I have pieced to together what bits I could find. This is very incomplete, but it might help in further searches. The music for the film is credited to both the Eurythmics and Muldowney.
Oceania! Oceania!
Oceania, tis of thee!
…
We the people will ceaselessly strive
To keep our great revolution alive
…
Thanks!
It actually is the version evilhanz mentioned (directed by Michael Radford, btw); I also found the ceaselessly strive line when listening to the CD another time, I’ll try to search it on a good engine.
They should make it mandatory that the booklet include the song lyrics…at least it tells me the lyrics were written by Jonathan Gems.
I have the Eurythmics soundtrack to 1984 at home. If I remember, I’ll see if there are any lyrics, and if Muldowney is credited on the album anywhere.
released an album called 1984, inspired by the book and movie, but it wasn’t the soundtrack to the movie. It’s an excellent album.
Well, the Eurythmics as well as Muldowney are credited in the movie for the music. And some Eurythmics songs actually do appear in the picture (for example “Julia” during the final credits), but Muldowney’s marches and anthems do as well.
Seems to be quite a mess with the music for this film.
I don’t remember specific details, but in general I seem to recall that director Michael Radford did not want Eurythmics songs in the movie. It was the producers and/or distributors who wanted a merchandising tie-in album that would help sell the film. This was around the dawn of the MTV era, and a montage of the film was set to one of the songs in the hopes of getting airplay to promote the movie.
So the Eurythmics did a bunch of songs without seeing the film and handed them over. Radford was insulted that they didn’t bother to watch his movie before presuming to compose music for it, and threatened not to use any of it. The Eurythmics then threatened either to hold up release of the album or to refuse to call is the “offical soundtrack album” (or something similar). The brief bits of Euythmics songs in the films are a compromise.
Steve Biodrowski
http://www.thescriptanalyst.com