Revenge of the Thirty-Day Song Challenge - Day 4

Day 4 – A Song Written for a Movie

I’ll be honest: I really don’t understand movie soundtracks. I mean, they make sense when a movie is a musical, or when a movie prominently features songs on said soundtracks, but I never really get soundtrack albums that are filled with songs that aren’t anywhere close to being featured in their film counterparts (the Godzilla soundtrack is the most egregious example of this I can think of, but I’m sure there are others). Occasionally, though, a song that’s “inspired by” a film breaks through my wall of skepticism and reaches me—in very special cases, it even makes one of my mixes.

Paramore – “Decode”

For those on the unawares, “Decode” is the song that Paramore made for the first Twilight movie. While this should seem like enough to chase me away from the song entirely, the fact that it’s a Paramore song was enough to draw me into an initial listen. I ended up liking it. A lot.

According to Wikipedia, “Decode” represents the tension between Bella and Edward’s forbidden and bubbling-under affection for each other. Sure it does. When I listen to it, I hear an aggressive, urgent tune that almost seems to press the listener on all sides with sonic claustrophobia; the eerie key, off-time drums, and driving chorus make “Decode” seem much more energetic than its plodding pace would normally let on. Hailey Williams’ voice is smashing as always, and I deeply regret that it’s not a bonus track on Brand New Eyes, because it’s quite apparent that they were at least written during the same timeframe.

A story associated with “Decode.” During one of my vacations to Bozeman from school, I was visiting my current roommate at his former place of residence. I mentioned in passing that Paramore had done a new song for Twilight, and asked if he had heard anything about it. I knew that he was mostly into post-hardcore stuff like Bring Me the Horizon and Texas In July, though, so I figured he would have heard about it only in print. To my surprise, he looked over his shoulder to check if his housemates where anywhere nearby, and quickly closed the blinds.

“You never heard this in this house,” he said, and he produced a copy of the song from his iTunes.

Perhaps that’s not an indication of quality for this exceptionally good movie song from Paramore, but I still think it’s pretty damn funny.