NOTE: Link is fixed!
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Over recent years, it's become more widely known by fans that there was a plan to bring the 1984 GOJIRA (or THE RETURN OF GODZILLA if you like) to the U.S. as a "wacky parody" and make it "funny." Thank goodness none of this came to fruition, and lots of people say that Raymond Burr had more than a little to do with stopping this from happening. He was certainly someone who understood the importance of Godzilla and what the character stood for.
Anyway, you'd be unable to convince me that the song on this record wasn't at the very least an outgrowth of that plan. Just look at the label: "the love theme from the motion picture GODZILLA 1985." It's also telling that it wasn't used as--at the very least--part of the end credits music, like Toho did with their Star Sisters track.
In the end, since the song existed, it was decided to use it in a music video of film clips, and distribute it as a promo 45. Judging from myriad YouTube comments, the video played on MTV a couple of times, on an Elvira special, and on the beloved Night Flight...and then disappeared. No word on whether any radio stations actually played the record. There is more than one upload of the video to YouTube if you are so inclined.
If you're familiar with the term "low-hanging fruit," then you understand why it's not even worth making fun of the song itself (it's so bad, it's bad). Instead, here are some fun facts:
*7-inch, 45 rpm promotional-only single, made and distributed by New World Pictures
*Stereo; 2 minutes 35 seconds
*Same version on both sides (whereas in the old days, you'd get one mono and one stereo version)
*Starts and ends with some added cheesy, looped Godzilla roars...the ending ones are weird and slurred, and reminds me of how they changed Toho roars for early Ultraman monsters. It's worth pointing out that there are versions of the promotional video on YouTube that have "clean" versions of the song, with no roars at all.
Finally, here is my direct rip of the song from the record itself, in both mp3 and lossless, in all its glory:
6 comments:
Thanks, the download for the file is requiring the user to request access. Is this normal?
Also, in case you weren't aware, the first ever English translation of "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again" will be on sale next month from Minnetota University Press. Here is the link: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/godzilla-and-godzilla-raids-again
Argh. Google Drive defaults to that, and it didn't take when I originally posted it. It's fixed now, thanks for letting me know!
I had read about those books finally getting translated several months back and had forgotten about them; thanks for the reminder, too!
Those Godzilla roars seem to be sourced from the U.S. version of Ghidrah. You can hear the cue "Premonition" from the U.S. stock score pretty clearly.
Interesting--that makes perfect sense! I heard that, but hadn't identified it yet, good call. What a strange thing to do, though.
"Where are our sound effects??!!"
"But--all we have is this off-air recording of yesterday's afternoon movie!"
"That'll do nicely! Nobody'll ever know!"
Realized I never posted the cue to my channel over the years. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR3RUsAid40
AWESOME!
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