Unearthed Vol. 13

Unearthed Collection
Written By Matt Williams
 
 
 
 

Featured Find: Music from A Found Harmonium, Patrick Street

I missed a lot of the most popular movies released during my childhood in the 90s and early 00s. My parents mastered a style of upbringing that I now refer to as supply-and-demand parenting. The basic guiding principle of this method is that if you limit the supply of anything enough, it will inflate to become (quite literally) priceless in the eyes of the deprived child.

Looking for some examples?

  • We earned a $2 weekly allowance if we kept our rooms clean, cleaned the kitchen each night after dinner, ran & folded a load of laundry, and completed a list of other assigned chores. If we fell short of these goals, our allowance would drop to $1 or nothing at all. At the end of the year, if all went well, we had scraped together $100. While these immense riches might have gone to our entitled heads, my parents took us to Walmart or Meijer each year in mid-December where we bought $20 Christmas gifts for each of our 3 siblings and our parents, effectively eliminating any possibility of saving up or being able to buy anything for ourselves.

  • Along with my siblings, the Williams children would spend an entire weekend every fall raking and hauling leaves to the edge of our forested property. At the end of the weekend, we would make a run to McDonald’s where our hard-earned reward for countless hours of hard labor was that we could split an Oreo McFlurry (valued at approximately $3)… I’m not exaggerating when I say that we would have happily done it all over again the next weekend. We never had fast food desserts other than after hard labor, and had to save our pennies for Christmas presents, so 1/2 a McFlurry became an incalculable reward.

(If you’re a parent reading this and thinking this sounds pretty great, shoot me an email at freshcutfinds@gmail.com. One of my life’s aspirations is to publish a parenting book lauding the merits of supply-and-demand parenting entitled Why I’d Still Kill for a Bowl Full of Granola in my 30s, and other Parenting Lessons. I’m looking for financial backing since I haven’t managed to save up for much more than Christmas presents.)

Ok, back to our story. Supply-and-demand parenting also applied to our consumption of television and movies growing up. Most years, we would watch about 4 movies a year on each of our birthdays. Most of the movies we did watch were one of the hundreds that my dad had recorded off TV onto VHS tapes and consisted mostly of Disney cartoons and classic black-and-white cinema.

All of that is to say, I didn’t watch Napoleon Dynamite until the quarantine of 2020… “gosh, friggin’ idiot!”

Napoleon Dynamite was released in 2004 after having been produced for a meager $400,000 dollars. Jon Heder, who stars as Napoleon, was initially contracted for only $1,000 to play the leading role. A successful run started with the film’s acquisition at the Sundance Film Festival and crescendoed to earn over $46 million in box-office revenue.

Despite the thin budget, the soundtrack is packed with gems and is worth a listen in its own right. Some of the better known tracks include:

  • Larger than Life, Backstreet Boys

  • Forever Young, Alphaville

  • We’re Going to Be Friends, The White Stripes

  • The Rose, Bette Midler

  • The Promise, When in Rome

Our featured find, Music from a Found Harmonium, scores the closing scene of Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon is a bullied outcast and his world embodies loneliness for most of the film, perhaps best captured by a scene where he is playing tetherball alone in the school yard. But in the closing sequence Napoleon steps out in an act of friendship to cover for his new friend, Pedro, who has just given a speech for a school election but failed to realize that he also had to do a skit. Napoleon risks what little of his pride remains and breaks out in an epic dance sequence that ultimately seals the election for Pedro and earns a standing ovation from the packed school auditorium. As Music from a Found Harmonium starts to play, the scene cuts to a shot of Napoleon playing tetherball, but this time he’s no longer alone, but is joined by his friend, Deb.

 
“Nunchuck skills… bowhunting skills… computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills!”
— Napoleon Dynamite
 

After hearing people quote the movie, I assumed it would fall in line with other over-blown comedies of that era (like maybe a Borat or a Superbad). Instead I found a piece of art of untold value. It’s filled with memories of childhood, celebrates the mundane and insignificant moments in life, and uplifts an unexpected hero who is able to overcome his insecurities and loneliness to embrace vulnerability and find genuine friendship. Maybe it’s because I was deprived of it for so long, but Napoleon Dynamite captures all of the joy and nostalgia that I have for a well-earned share of an Oreo McFlurry; and is somehow so much more valuable to me because I waited until now to see it.

Keep on digging…

Much of the music in each Unearthed playlist was discovered through the great work of other curators & artists who are endless sources of inspiration for me. Here are the main sources for this month’s playlist:

  • And of course, recommendations from friends & family

 
 

Each month, we put together a playlist of our favorite discoveries new & old, sent on the 1st day of the month. Subscribe to receive the monthly Unearthed playlist, along with other Fresh Cut Finds playlists.

 
Matt Williams
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Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 7 - August '20