My Own Private Idaho Soundtrack

I recently had the pleasure to re-screen Gus Van Sant’s 1991 film My Own Private Idaho. Idaho starts out on a dead run with River Phoenix standing still in the middle of a road, looking into the distance and seeing that big landscape smile back at him, only to narcolepsy-out and wish-fulfill a loving mother. A quick jump to hustling, the Muffler Man, more hustling, and then those salmon chasing their dna up the stream -- and that’s before we are done with the opening credits. (And it must be said: River Phoenix is relentlessly alive in the film, giving the character layer upon layer of emotional depth.) The movie is a noted hybrid, with, to mention but one filmic aspect, the use of 8mm (documentary-like) footage to conjure up pieces of the past. But that hybridity also pervades the soundtrack. Eddy Arnold, Rudy Valee, Bill Stafford (who won an Independent Spirit Award for his work on the film), Madonna, Elton John. You get the picture. I can’t remember when I first saw Idaho, but I know I didn’t watch the end-credits and hear Shane MacGowan’s rough trade tale of The Old Main Drag.

The Pogues - The Old Main Drag [buy]

Bill Stafford, apparently known in the pedal steel world as “Mr. Smooth,” floats mysteriously through a number of musical interludes and gracefully pedal-steels his way through moving versions of “America the Beautiful” and "Home of the Free.” Unfortunately, they did not release an official soundtrack for the film and I haven’t been able to locate either of Stafford’s contributions online, but you can watch some clips of Bill and friends at his website having a good time and grinning through some laid-back Hawaiian songs, and this number: