Movie References in Arctic Monkeys’ Songs
Whether you are a fan of Arctic Monkeys or just listen to a few of their songs once in a while, you may have noticed the various references to pop culture that are embedded in Alex Turner’s lyrics. Indeed, the band’s frontman is well-known for his ingenious and poetic lyrics, often full of references to books, movies, musicals, or even other music. One would probably get lost exploring the vast and complex mind of this songwriting genius. And while the melody of the songs plays a huge role in how we receive the band’s music, their lyrics are as good, if not better. Keeping this in mind, I will scrupulously examine Turner’s multiple references to films in his songs, serving me as small insights into the curious world he lives in.
The Wizard of Oz
The first reference I stumbled upon is from the band’s 2007 album Favourite Worst Nightmare. More specifically, looking at one of my favorite songs from the album, “Old Yellow Bricks'', the references to The Wizard of Oz and its famous yellow brick road are immediately noticeable. The song is also very rich in thematic parallels with the film, dealing with the idea of wanting to escape where you come from while simultaneously feeling homesick. Looking closer at the song’s lyrics, “When you wished for a thousand places better than this” and “But you don't know what you're runnin' from” clearly expands on the idea that one might be unsatisfied with where they live and want to leave. However, at the end of the song, we understand that Alex’s take is not far from the film’s moral lesson, as he mentions Dorothy’s famous line “there’s no place like home” when he says “but Dorothy was right though”.
Barbarella
Arctic Monkeys’ “Arabella” from their famous 2013 album AM is a voyage through time and space, filled with allusions to sex, drugs, and space exploration. The song’s name not only references Roger Vadim’s 1968 sci-fi film Barbarella, but is also a combination of the film’s title and Turner’s girlfriend at the time’s name, Arielle Vandenberg. Essentially transforming his girlfriend into a sex symbol from Vadim’s world, Turner doesn’t shy away from referencing the 60s sexual liberation and obsession with space, pushing the concept as far as he can. Playing with Jane Fonda’s character Barbarella, he describes her as she’s wearing “interstellar gator skin boots,” a “silver swimsuit” and has lips “like the galaxy’s edge”. However, while Barberella’s sexuality is extremely overt and even used in return for favors in the film, Alex’s ex is much more reserved, and he describes her as a “modern lover”.
Vengeance Trilogy
The band’s most recent record is probably the richest in terms of allusions to and influences from TV, cinema, and pop culture in general. My favorite line from the entire album has to be “What do you mean you’ve never seen Blade Runner ?” I remember hearing the line for the first time and I couldn't help but smile as I remembered the film being on my watchlist for a good three months. But this isn’t what this paragraph is about. This is about the Vengeance trilogy, as referenced in my all-time favorite track from the record, “Batphone”. Just through this reference, we can already tell Mr. Turner has taste. For those unfamiliar with the films, The Vengeance Trilogy is the name given to a South Korean thematically-linked (and unofficial) film trilogy directed by Park Chan-wook, including Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), and Lady Vengeance (2005). If you know Alex Turner’s songwriting style, or like me, have watched hours of interviews trying to decipher each of his words, it is quite clear that some of his references to books and films are not necessarily key symbols that reveal the meaning behind his songs. Instead, they can be linked to a general theme, or merely reflections of Turner’s own little world, which is most likely the case here. This is not to say that the allusion is meaningless, just that it doesn’t play an important role in the overall lyrical approach to this song.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
The title of their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not is a direct quote from the novel Saturday Night Sunday Morning written in 1958 by Alan Sillitoe. Now, I know what you’re thinking: what does this have to do with this list? The book was turned into a famous film in 1960, and tells the tale of Arthur Seaton, a man who works at the local factory, drinks hard on the weekends, and carries on with various women, eventually railing against people who claim to have got the measure of him. The famous line was pulled from a scene in which he rants and says: “I’m me and nobody else. Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not because they don't know a bloody thing about me! God knows what I am”. Alex Turner liked that and in fact, realized that most of the story depicting working-class culture in the late 50s and early 60s was very similar to his own lyrics about Sheffield nightlife in the early 21st Century.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The 1960s American Western Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid is another film Turner references, appearing in their 2011 song “Black Treacle” from their fourth record, Suck It and See. In an interview with NME magazine, Turner recalls writing this song: “I watched a couple of westerns when we were doing this, like Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, which gets a reference in there. I also just wanted to put 'belly-button piercings' in a tune, I thought that would be good. I'd kind of wanted to do it for a couple of weeks and then managed to fit it in there. Why? I'd not thought about them for a while and they came on my radar somehow. And then I thought about this thing of them and the stars being juxtaposed”. Later on, Turner expanded on his songwriting style, elaborating on why he likes to write songs in a poetic yet almost nonsensical way: “it's cool to let the words sometimes take more of a back seat. I think there are like two types of songs (that I write) where some of them I want people to, like, understand where it is and almost be right there with you. So that would be something like “Cornerstone”, where I feel the person listening is right there with you. Then there are other things that are more like “Black Treacle” or “Crying Lightning” from the last one, where it's much more vague, and I want to keep it that way”. Once again, Turner highlights his desire to leave some of his lyrics up for interpretation and deliberately avoids assigning a specific meaning to his word choices.
Some honorable mentions: Thunderbirds in “R U Mine”, Mean Streets in “Knee Socks” and The Munsters in “You’re So Dark”.