LISTENING PARTY: Batman

Take that, Heath Ledger!

1989 was an important year for me. I of course can remember specific incidents from before then: a day here, an moment or two there. But 1989 was the first time I had a visceral sense of the passing of time. Where I was aware my life existed on a continuum with each day leading from the day before and leading into the next. Some might say this is because I was approaching my tenth birthday and was becoming more aware of time worked. Other might claim that I was beginning to mature and develop my sense of self. But the truth is this: I became cognizant of the passing of time in 1989 solely because I was counting down to the release of the Batman movie.

Nowadays I don't think you can walk six feet without tripping over a superhero/comic based movie, but in 1989 the release of Tim Burton's Batman was unprecedented, especially to a 9 and 5/6 year old boy like myself. I couldn't wait, and in anticipation of the film, I gathered every piece of movie related merchandise I could get my hands on (mainly, since I was so young, other people got it for me, but I was such a willing recipient.)

So I had the Batman action figures, the Batman movie novelization, the Batman poster and sticker book, the Batman cereal. I even had the Batman shaped piggy-bank. But the strangest Batman-related item I owned was Prince's Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. I begged for this, even though BOTH my mother and father asked me several times if I was sure I wanted it, because they were certain I wouldn't enjoy it. How wrong they were!

"The Future"-The album opens with dialogue from Michael Keaton's amazing "Tell all your friends about me" line from the film. And just as the crook he's dangling over the edge of the building whimpers, "What are you?" Prince's funky drum machine kicks in to answer: I'm the funky Batman, retard. This song's only relation to the film is that it quotes Jack Nicholson's "Think about the future" line. So much of the 1989 Batman film boils down to a collection of little catchphrases that I'd heard well before I went to opening night with my dad on June 23, 1989. I marvel that anybody at Warner Brothers thought that Prince, who looks like a Batman villain, should do the soundtrack, but it's one of those decisions that seems so brilliant in its stupidity that whoever came up with it must've been an idiot savant like Rain Man. Which also came out in 1989. It comes full circle.

"Electric Chair"-If I knew anything about electric guitars back in 1989 I'd have been pretty impressed by Prince's playing on this track. But at the time I was probably just waiting for him to drop a Riddler reference into the lyrics. As it stands, this song has nothing to do with Batman at all, except that its chorus says that if a man can be considered guilty for what goes on in his mind then give him the electric chair for all the dirty things he's going to think. This just shows how little Prince understood Batman. The Caped Crusader is against capital punishment, which is why the Joker is able to kill dozens of people every time he escapes. Because Batman won't even put someone in the electric chair for the crimes they actually commit, nevermind those that go on in their minds. My best guess is that Prince wrote this song before he ever heard of the Batman movie, probably as part of his deal with the devil to write two songs every hour in exchange for girls not laughing at how short he is. Seriously, Prince is really, really short,but still gets lots of beautiful women. And he writes a lot of songs. I think the connection is obvious.

"The Arms of Orion"-Sheena Easton? Whatever happened to Vicki Vale? And this song, again to the disappointment of 9 and 5/6 year old Ryan, has nothing to do with Batman whatsoever. And what are the arms of Orion? I'm seriously not up on my astronomy, so I wouldn't even know where to look. Also, how much stargazing do you think they get to do in Gotham City, with that Bat-signal shining all the time? I suppose you have bigger concerns than star-gazing when at any moment you could get impaled on a giant umbrella by the Penguin. This song sounds like it was written for Barbara Streisand instead of for the Dark Knight. Very disappointing. I mean the song is decent, it just doesn't inspire me to go out and strike fear into the hearts of criminals. It does make me want to invest in a Fairlight synthesizer and tympani drums.

Partyman by Prince from the film Batman


"Partyman"- I just heard the Joker! He said something before this song started! That's what I'm talking about. Prince deliberated speeds up his voice in this song, similar to how he did it in the song Kiss, which in 1989 I hadn't heard yet. In 1989 I wasn't so concerned with how Prince was kind of doing lamer versions of better songs he'd already written so much as I was with how he was insisting on calling Joker "Partyman" They do play this song in the movie, when Joker is destroying all the artwork in the museum, which seems like kind of a crazy party, if you ask me. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this is the kind of party Prince has for his birthday.

"Vicki Waiting"- This song has it all. Jack Nicholson voice sample, ringing phone sound effects, name of Batman character in the title. It also has a dirty joke in the first verse about the size of Batman's organ. This is probably the only time in the thousands of Batman stories that someone has accused the Dark Detective of stuffing his codpiece. I think Prince=sex for most people (which a week after the passing of Michael Jackson reminded us that for most people Michael Jackson = sexless freak. Complete opposites) so he adds an inappropriate sexual edge to what is probably the least sexual character to dress up in an all rubber suit ever.



"Trust" This song is also from the movie, where the Joker lures the denizens of Gotham City to his parade so he can give them free money then gas them to death. I'm surprised more politicians haven't attempted this tack. I think even when I was 9 and 5/6 years old I could tell that Prince played all the instruments himself, and I think this track is the most obvious about it. Oh, sweet, a Robert Wuhl vocal sample. I remember feeling like I should watch his show Arliss when it premiered out of some kind of outdated loyalty to this movie. That's how important Batman was to me back then. If you were in the movie, I treated you like royalty. The actor Pat Hingle played Commissioner Gordon and for years afterwards, I would watch any shitty movie that was on UHF Saturday afternoons if I saw his little hangdog face in it.

"Orange Crush"- I love this drink. Oh, wait, the title is "Lemon Crush" which sounds even tastier. This song is one of my favorites on the record, even though it is even further away from the movie than all the other tracks. The liner notes tell you who is "singing" each song, and this one is credited to Vicki Vale for some reason, even though one of the verses actually uses the word "jobba" which, as all my fellow nerds will recognize as the name of the slug gangster from Return of the Jedi. I think my 9 and 5/6 year old self would have killed to have Batman team up with Han Solo to battle Two-Face and Boba Fett. It was never meant to be. And if it happened now, I would probably kill someone to PREVENT it from happening.

"Scandalous"- This song is "sung" by Batman. Not even Bruce Wayne. I think I would really like to see a Batman musical. I know that Jim Steinman, the guy who wrote all of Meatloaf's songs, wrote one ten years ago, and his sturm und drung approach to rock music with bad punning titles is maybe even more inappropriate to Batman than Prince's slow-groove sex music. Example: In this song, Batman tells...someone...that he can't wait to wrap his legs around them. Usually if Batman wraps his legs around you, it is because he is trying to break your spine while his hands are bound behind his back. People he might be saying this to: Killer Croc, Mad Hatter, Bane. I don't think Prince means it the same way, though. Also, and this might be my lack of sexual knowledge here, but isn't it more common for the lady to wrap her legs around the man? But then again, Prince is in to some pretty freaky shit. I mean, Batman is, too, but in a different way. I mean Batman might dress up like a bat and terrorize the criminal element, but he isn't the kind of guy who would wrap his legs around a girl in a romantic gesture. I mean, c'mon.

"Bat Dance" What.the.hell.is.this. When I was a kid, I begged my mom to let me watch MTV when this premiered, as I wasn't typically allowed to watch it. And sweet lord. Check out this link if you thought your life was complete without a bunch of dancing Batmen in it. I know mine wasn't. This song isn't so much a song as a sound collage of random snippets of dialogue from the film against so bad they should be outlawed drum machines and an actually pretty rad guitar solo. And in this way, Prince is just like Batman: both see a world that is falling apart at the seams, and each has found his own way to try and make that world right. Batman strikes out into the night to avenge the death of his parents to try and prevent anyone from suffering like he has. Prince dresses up like the Joker (and he started doing this at least 5 years before the movie came out) and records an average of one album every six hours to avenge the fact that he is only 4 feet 11 inches tall. Which was exactly how tall I was in 1989, when I popped this cassette into my boombox, stared at the giant bat emblem on the tape cover, and got superfreaked in the ear for forty-two minutes. Luckily, I got taller.



This was probably the best day of my life to this point.