Imagine my surprise when I visited my then-girlfriend – anyone who read my Valentine’s Day piece knows her well – over Christmas break in 1992, and in her car was the soundtrack for Cool World. Her taste in music…well, let’s put it this way: she needed lots and lots of guidance. Before we met, her CD collection consisted of Milli Vanilli and Debbie Gibson. After we broke up, she dedicated her musical life to country. Basically, she was a chameleon with music, adapting to her surroundings. But while she was with me, she liked what I liked, or to a point, anyway. Still, if the idea of her buying a soundtrack that featured Ministry, the Cult, a pre-Play Moby and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult was amusing to me then, it’s downright hilarious now. But buy it she did…and steal it I did. I assure you, she doesn’t miss it.

My original interest in the soundtrack was due to the title track from David Bowie – reunited with Nile Rodgers, and it feels so good – the instrumental track from the Thompson Twins, and “Disappointed,” the third collaboration between Electronic and Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant. Then I heard “Papua New Guinea,” and tossed the other three songs aside. There was something in the octave-jumping keyboard riff combined with the ethereal vocal (more on that later), minimalist bass line and staccato synth line, that simply mesmerized me. The song was an Indian guy playing a punji, and I was the cobra. That’s a fitting analogy, considering that my then-girlfriend and I got along in the same way a cobra gets along with a mongoose.

Of course, I think there was another reason why I found the song so appealing: it sounded like sex. Hot, steamy, wildly passionate sex. I’ve never seen the movie that shares the soundtrack’s name– though the Wiki page dedicated to it is loaded with juicy stories – but I always assumed that this song appeared in a sex scene. Which could have been all kinds of kinky, given that Kim Basinger played a “doodle” (read: all your impure thoughts about Jessica Rabbit come screaming to life), but I’m sure that whatever I came up with in my head is far more erotic than anything that wound up on the screen. (more…)