Apatow Put Lots of Thought Into Music
Rob Lowman - Los Angeles Daily News
Jul 28, 2009
LOS ANGELES -- Music is an important part of every Judd Apatow movie; more so in "Funny People."
"I was choosing the music for the movie and I thought, I wonder if I can make every single song in the movie have some importance to me and they will connect everything," says the writer-director.
One of his early ideas was to get a solo song from every Beatle.
He accomplishes it in an offbeat way. The film opens with a 1997 song from Paul McCartney called "Great Day." Along the way, the film's star, Adam Sandler, performs John Lennon's 1979 "Real Love" and we hear the 1973 "Photograph" sung by Ringo Starr but written by him and George Harrison.
It took Apatow a long time to figure out the musical closing of the movie before he settled on a demo of Lennon singing "Watching the Wheels," which was written for his final album, the 1980 "Double Fantasy."
"It's great," says Apatow. "This is literally the recording of him singing this song the moment he wrote it. And that's what the movie is about -- the creative process."
Also on the soundtrack is Neil Diamond doing an early take of "We," a song from 2006, the Wilco song "Jesus, Etc.," which was taken from a live concert, two Warren Zevon songs and two songs written and sung by one of the film's other stars, Jason Schwartzman. Apatow's eldest daughter, Maude, sings "Memories" from "Cats" -- it's a plot point.
Apatow also brought a favorite -- James Taylor -- to perform live.
"I'm such a fan of his," says Apatow. "And when we were shooting it, everybody was crying because they are so moved by his songs."
Apatow only needed Taylor to do one or two songs for the movie, but he asked him if he'd do more.
"So he did his entire concert for us over two days and it was probably the most fun two days to shoot," Apatow recalls.
Seth Rogen, one of the film's stars, says the singer-songwriter "didn't need to play for four-and-a-half hours. That was so Judd could watch James Taylor."
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