It’s really weird because I found the CD booklet of the soundtrack of ‘Garden State’ on the ground when I was running outside this week. It was there, probably dropped by someone and lying open on concrete,… I picked it up, and I remembered how good this soundtrack was, with two songs by the Shins (‘Caring Is Creepy’, and ‘New Slang’) plus Nick Drake, Simon and Garfunkel, Iron and Wine, Colin Hay, okay there also was also Coldplay but it was early Coldplay, the good one. Many people (but not me) discovered the Shins thanks to this movie, during the scene when Natalie Portman put her big headphones above Zach Braff’s ears, swearing ‘it [The Shins] will change his life’.
It was ten years ago already, and Zach Braff is releasing another film called ‘Wish I Was Here’, very successfully funded by a Kickstarter campaign which managed to raise over $3 million! The film is ‘a follow-up to ‘Garden State’ in spirit’, and is renewing with the idea of an all-star soundtrack, which will include this time Bon Iver, Paul Simon (again), Coldplay (again), Badly Drawn Boy, Gary Jules, Aaron Embry, Cat Power and the Shins of course. Braff declared to NPR:
‘It’s no secret I am a giant fan of The Shins. For this film, I asked James Mercer if he would consider writing something original, inspired by his first impression of seeing the film. Not only did he say yes, but what he came back with gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. He is a savant.’
‘So Now What’ sounds like a typical Shins song, all wide-eyed and booming like a ray of sunshine with a bit of darkness evaporating really fast in James Mercer’s falsetto harmonies. The lyrics are just plain simple, ‘I had this crazy idea/ Somehow we cruise to the end /Change lives and everything precious /And I guess we’ll just begin again /I think you know you’re my best friend’… it’s a bit sad because Mercer used to write damn cryptic ones, where are these little gems – ‘Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth /Only, I don’t know how they got out, dear’? Nothing close to this here.
My guess is that this film is a bad idea, follow-up never works for me – actually the critics are kind of bad – and you can’t never repeat some spontaneous success through a Kickstarter campaign and a few recycled ideas. The Shins song is a new one though and the complete soundtrack will be out on July 15th, while the film is released on July 18th.
