Month: January 2021

SUMMARY:                                RUNNING TIME: 3:21 Min.

Recorded for the 1983 Eddie and the Cruisers film soundtrack, John Cafferty (as the fictional Eddie Wilson’s singing voice) and the Beaver Brown Band (covering for on-screen Cruisers) perform this rock tune.  Per a 1963-64 flashback in the film’s storyline, a troubled Eddie Wilson is inspired by 19^th Century French poet Arthur Rimbaud to create a dark, mind-bending new form of rock album. 

Amidst the album’s belated ‘release’ nearly twenty years later, the song appears just prior to the film’s concluding credits.

REVIEW:

Reminiscent of something Jim Morrison and The Doors might have conjured up, the enigmatic “Season in Hell” is both ruminating and pulsating.  Its poetic lyrics equating some unknown love to burning fire is an intriguing notion, though little else beyond the song’s ominous finish comes to life (or makes sense).  Suffice to say, the track is interesting to hear the first time, but it becomes less so with repetitive listening.  

BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING:                 7 Stars

Note: The soundtrack concludes with a different segment of Eddie’s long-lost “Season in Hell” album.

SUMMARY:                            RUNNING TIME: 2:52 Min.

Recorded for the 1983 Eddie and the Cruisers film soundtrack, John Cafferty (as the fictional Eddie Wilson’s singing voice) and the Beaver Brown Band (doubling for the on-screen Cruisers) perform this rock tune.  Per a 1963-64 flashback in the film’s storyline, a troubled Eddie Wilson is inspired by 19^th Century French poet Arthur Rimbaud to create a dark, mind-bending new form of rock album (a precursor to The Doors’ style).  This song appears in the film’s concluding scene leading off the end credits.   

REVIEW:

For clarification, this song isn’t a reprise of the prior track (despite its listing) – it should be construed as the second half of the so-called “Fire Suite.”  More so, it’s odd: this song works perfectly accentuating the story’s twist finish.  Yet, aside its dramatic opening bars, the tune isn’t  that remarkable … it’s even underwhelming, if heard outside the movie. 

Worse yet is the late inclusion of garbled background noise – evidently, technical static from the recording studio’s control room was inadvertently included.  Considering this inexplicable ‘noise’ isn’t part of the song’s film version, it’s a lazy technical gaffe that no one ever bothered to fix.  Frankly, it makes little difference either way. 

BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING:                       5½ Stars

Note: The soundtrack’s prior track is the first half of “Season in Hell (Fire Suite).”