Five years in the making Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, releases Rome, his soundtrack to “an imaginary film.” He paired prodigies Jack White and Norah Jones with harpsichord and a reunited Cantori Monderni of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly fame. In collaboration with Italian composer Daniele Lupii (Sex In the City series) Burton recorded in Rome. The beauty of working with Luppi is that his music has been described as a barrel of Italian film-score cliché. He is the roast beef po’boy to Danger Mouse’s beef bourguignon. Working at Forum Studios, formerly a church where Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; A Fistful of Dollars) composed music for 60s and 70s spaghetti westerns—the album hinges upon that influence, although we fight not to be transported to the American Southwest. The title is, afterall, Rome. Not just Rome, but pink neorealist Rome.
Now, reviews are mixed. Some people love it, “Hey, it’s real music. Not a Portishead remix.” Others hate it because they think it stands in Ennio Morricone’s shadow (and pees on it). But, apparently, these folks criticize creativity, whilst taking no care to be creative at all. This is a concept album about a movie that exists only in your head. Oddly enough, no reviewers talk about this hypothetical film. It’s like Burton gave us an album and a kaleidoscope, and everybody just threw the kaleidoscope away. Well, we didn’t. Let’s get creative:
Ground yourselves in the era. Film at this time moving into the more hopeful, bright-eyed Neorealisomo Rosa. Everything is going to be alright, even if Marcello fools around on you constantly. Things even get pretty funny. A la Divorce Italian Style, we poke fun at sacred things and laugh at ourselves. The representation of America’s patriotic and overtly righteous Wild West is fair game, rewritten to include James Bond elements that dominated the decade: violent blood-baths, dubious intent, torture, and sex (not love).
We open on a Technicolor sandy valley, but it’s not New Mexico, it’s Valle del Treja outside of Rome, like all spaghetti westerns. The “Theme of Rome” hustles a dusty, cowboy-hatted Jack White on his horse out of the hazy horizon and into plain sight. The drifter’s song, “The Rose With A Broken Neck,” is about his tragic loneliness. “Lonely I feel, lonely I bleed,” afraid even his death would go unnoticed because people only swarm for train wrecks and track marks. We can assume he’s probably a good guy, risking his life without much thanks, compelled to protect others despite reservations. Unshaven and dark, he wanders into a new town, probably eager to be noticed. The hopeful music box of the “Morning Fog” interlude introduces Norah Jones, our romantic interest. Full of longing in “Season’s Trees” she sings about her mundane slavish existence in a small, dust-bowl town. “Every girl gets a dream cast into reality, never seemed to bother me only until recently,” she dreams of running away. The gentle music box interlude “Her Hollow Ways” is a brief glimpse into her day-to-day as the prettiest whore at El Matador (remember spaghetti western). The instrumental “Roman Blue” is the coy introduction of our protagonist and love interest in the brothel-bar. Norah strolling down a staircase in a corset and to find the dirty, Navajo-blanketed Jack pretending not to notice the whole room intimidated by his out-of-town stirrups and gruff alcoholism. Her pimp, the Matador himself, notices her interest. He asserts himself by asking Jack not to where his gun inside, making sure the newcomer knows he’s the most important guy in town. The miffed Jack responds with “Two Against One,” apparently the tortured protagonist is fighting himself already “so what’s another one?” The winner of this pissing contest is unclear because it seems obvious Jack has a deathwish.
“The Gambling Priest” sits in the corner losing all his money to a couple 49ers. Drunk he shoots his mouth off to Jack about what a deadly sonofabitch Matador is, evil as the day is long. His money and influence has a hopeless hold on the town, keeping it the merciless, lawless, and poor.
Transition to Norah up in her room. Gazing out her window on the starlight desert. “The World” interlude with its expansive tinkering bells is her dreaming of a better a life, of the promise of possibility in the world at large. Maybe Jack is the change she has longed for, someone who can whisk her away. No sooner is she hopeful than she receives a beating in the slow motion “Black.” She descends into the void that is her enslavement, “And when you follow through and wind up on your back, looking up at no stars in the sky those white clouds have turned it black.” The double entendre referring also to the bruises he leaves on her, “When the last pain is gone and all that’s left is black.”Presumably, Jack finds her in this state and goes after the Matador. An epic fight ensues and Black sprays nasty bits of Matador all over the place obliterating some of his cohorts and the brothel in the process. As he lies dying in “The Matador Has Fallen” he can hardly believe its finally come to this. He motions as if he wants to tell Jack something, but he has no time for last requests. Matador dies alone. “Morning Fog” returns and atop the stairs a frightened and black-eyed Norah appears. Chest heaving. Queue protagonist-love interest sex scene.
Unable to accept her new freedom and the possibility of a life out there, Norah sings “Problem Queen.” She’s in “a state of shock” and “it all seems a dream.” But she’s not alone anymore. The thumpy bass of the instrumental “Her Hollow Ways” is her champion’s reminder that whoring is all behind her now, Say goodbye to this hell hole. As they ascend the valley on his horse, “The World” introduces Norah to the rough yet rewarding wide open.
Freelance writer, novelist, and fiction editor for Prick of the Spindle Sarah Rae lives and writes in Brooklyn.
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