Dolly Parton gave us 2023’s best needle-drop
Sofia Coppola is an immaculate stylist, tastemaker, and music fan whose movies are known for their impeccably curated soundtracks. She’s responsible for some of the great needle-drops of the 21st century: Think of the numbed, aching romance of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” at the end of Lost in Translation, or the punky frivolity of Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” scoring the shopping spree in Marie Antoinette.
No director is better suited for the challenge of putting together a soundtrack for an Elvis movie without having the rights to use any Elvis songs. Sure enough, the soundtrack to her Priscilla Presley biopic, Priscilla, is cunning and gorgeous. It mixes period (or period-ish) hits with anachronistic, moody indie to conjure both the rockin’ decadence associated with Elvis and an appropriate atmosphere — somewhere between wistful and stifling — for a movie about a young woman imprisoned by a dream come true. The woozy stomp of the Ramones’ cover of “Baby, I Love You” that opens the movie sets the tone perfectly.
But Coppola saves the very best for last, even though the song in question sadly isn’t included on the official soundtrack album. At the end of the movie [Ed. note: Historical spoilers ahead!], Priscilla summons the self-possession to leave the controlling, self-absorbed Elvis, and Coppola shows her driving out through the gates of Graceland, their daughter, Lisa Marie, in the back seat. The tune Coppola sets this scene to could not be more perfect: Dolly Parton’s original 1974 recording of her immortal breakup song, “I Will Always Love You.”
It’s an exquisite choice that works on multiple levels, and it has even more resonance when you know some of the song’s backstory. Taken purely at face value, “I Will Always Love You” could scarcely be more appropriate. It’s a beautiful song, with a lovely, keening vocal from Parton. It’s sentimental, sorrowful but affirming, lyrically right on the button, and period-appropriate, give or take a couple
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