Soundtrack

What's in a soundtrack?

There are several main types of songs in musicals and musical theatre: "I Want," "I Am," conditional love songs, comic songs, Act Two openers, and 11 o'clock numbers. 

"I Want" and "I Am" are self-explanatory. The former is perhaps one of the most written and most well-known types of songs. A character tears their emotions from their chest and bares their soul, describing their very deepest desires. The latter is more of a fourth-wall breaking moment, where a character lays out exactly who they are, a la "Major General's Song" from Pirates of Penzance. 

Conditional love songs are love songs where characters perhaps haven't yet realized it's a love song, but the audience has. Comic songs are, as the name suggests, comic -- a way for levity to be brought in and the mood to be lightened. Think "Make 'Em Laugh" from Singin' in the Rain.

Act Two openers open the second act, and must yank the audiences back into the world of the story. 11 o'clock numbers are the giant ballads at the end of the musical, and they're meant to knock the audience's socks off. 

When writing the Reservoir Dogs musical, I ended up with numbers that fit mostly all of these quintessential theatre songs. Unsurprisingly, the comic song is the opening number, "Just the Tip." It's a reference to the opening scene in the film, where the criminals are eating breakfast at the diner, discussing Madonna's song "Like a Virgin" as well as arguing over who will tip the waitress. The title "Just the Tip" is intentionally a double entendre in order to keep the theme of sexual innuendo from the film... and, of course, the discussion of tipping culture. 

"Tough Guy" is the conditional love song. Only the second song in the musical, it occurs right after the opening number, as Mr. White holds a bloody Mr. Orange in the warehouse. In the film, Mr. White says "Who's a tough guy?" and encourages Mr. Orange to respond with "I'm a tough guy, Larry." This is what the title and song is based on. Mr. White is trying to comfort Mr. Orange, who battles with shock and shame because he has just killed a civilian. He is also attempting to come to terms with his own feelings for Mr. White: "All my blood that has spilled on the floor / Wishes unfulfilled, still there's more / I'm not brave, but maybe I can bear / There's a tough guy in here somewhere." 

My Act Two opener isn't as flashy and exciting as many famous Act Two openers. Instead of being lighthearted, dance-heavy, and separate from the main story, it is devastating, dance-free, and irrevocably intertwined with the plotline. "A Dangerous Path" is a conversation between Mr. Orange and Marvin Nash, the former admitting how attached he is to this job and to Mr. White, and the latter warning him not to continue on this path because soon he might not be able to go back. "It's getting easier to jump out of line, not quite so / Queasy now when I look in his eyes, feel myself / Slipping down a dangerous path, it happened so fast."

The "I Want" song is "Mirror," although it shows up relatively late in the game at the beginning of Act Two. It occurs during a flashback. Through non-linear storytelling, it is actually one of the first events that occurs chronologically, happening in Mr. Orange's apartment right before he goes down to do the heist. You know the "You're fucking Baretta" scene in the film, where he jabs his finger at the mirror on the wall? Yeah. The entire song is basically that one moment. Mr. Orange is trying to convince himself that he's doing the right thing, even though he's falling for Mr. White.

Let's take a look at the end of the song: "He's a real bad guy who's done a lot of bad things / He'll do better in a cell than he'd ever do free / And when you look in the mirror / When you look in the mirror / That's what you see." Mr. Orange, despite the use of he, and despite supposedly singing about Mr. White, is referring to himself. He believes that he has now done a lot of bad things, and that he belongs in jail, because of how deeply entrenched in the criminal world he is. And after getting to know Mr. White, he's realizing that Mr. White isn't as bad a guy as he originally thought.

Finally, I think that "Mexican Standoff" will end up being the 11 o'clock number. It's the next to last song in the show, when Joe Cabot, Nice Guy Eddie, and Mr. White are all pointing their guns at each other. I'm playing around with the idea of having choreography that features their weapons; I think it would be really neat to see them dance around the stage while still keeping their guns trained on each other the entire time. It's the climax of the show, where tension is highest and everything comes together.

It was difficult to determine which moments from the film would make good songs in the musical. "Little Doggy," Mr. Blonde's song, was the first one I planned out. "You gonna bark all day, little doggy? Or are you gonna bite?" is one of the most well-known lines from the movie. I knew I had to turn it into a song. And so I did: Mr. Blonde's entrance to the warehouse, really showcasing his nastiness and his ego, but also his complete detachment from any emotion whatsoever: "I had to get out / I knew exactly how / They tried to be heroes / Well, how do they like it now?"

I also knew that I needed to include the famous ear cutting scene, featuring the song "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel. In the musical, though, it will be a duet between Mr. Blonde and Marvin Nash, as the former chases the latter around the stage. Marvin is injured and incapacitated, having just been beaten up. Mr. Blonde is toying with him. During an instrumental break, he at last captures him and tapes him to the folding chair, where he proceeds to cut his ear off. I have kept many of the original lyrics to the Stealers Wheel song, but changed some to better reflect the situation: "Well, you started out with nothing / How are you liking your purpose, man? / All your friends left you behind, now / You're my sacrificial lamb."

I wanted to give each character their moment to shine. Mr. Blonde, Mr. Orange, Mr. White, and Mr. Pink have entire solo numbers. Eddie gets his time in the spotlight in “Straight as an Arrow” (which he shares with Joe) and “What Really Happened,” Holdaway features heavily in "The Commode Story," and Marvin Nash sings half of "Stuck in the Middle With You" and "A Dangerous Path." The ensemble, including Mr. Brown and Mr. Blue, sing in "Just the Tip" -- but they will also return in later portions of the show, acting out the flashbacks on the catwalk while the principal cast talks or sings about them below.

My inspirations for the music of Reservoir Dogs: The Musical were Beetlejuice the Musical and RENT ---combinations of big, flashy, comedic numbers as well as darkly profound and heartbreaking ballads. In Beetlejuice, Eddie Perfect included two songs (Day-O and Jump in the Line) that played huge roles in the original film, but he reworked them to fit the musical. In RENT, "Tango: Maureen" features a huge dance number that ends up just being Mark's hallucination, as he hit his head halfway through the song. I used this as an influence for the "Stuck in the Middle With You" sequence, although there is no hallucination involved; it ends much in the same way it started and seems like almost a fever dream.

I have settled on a sparse list of 16 songs for Reservoir Dogs: The Musical, but I might go back and write more -- like a true Act Two opener that might bring back some of the minor characters like Mr. Brown and Mr. Blue and give them a chance to explain what happened to them. In a musical, the soundtrack is essential in affecting the audience's emotions as well as carrying the story along. It's challenging to take spoken scenes from a film and translate them into musical theatre. But I hope that I can adapt Reservoir Dogs to the stage without losing its trademark grittiness.