BY ANNA ZALOKOSTAS

In print | January 31, 2008

Considering Juno MacGuff’s strong affinity for Patti Smith, The Stooges and The Runaways, her appreciation for Les Paul guitars and the prominent role of music in the film, it seems appropriate (though somewhat ironic) that the movie’s success in the box office has spilled into the world of music (the film’s soundtrack release party was filled to capacity an hour and a half early, with over 100 people waiting outside the venue for a chance to see Kimya Dawson perform). While music charts make it clear that a great number of people have already discovered the skillfully crafted and carefully chosen compilation of songs that constitutes the soundtrack for the movie, Swarthmore students aren’t particularly well known for following what goes on in the “real world,” and so, as part of the column-quest I have decidedly set out on this semester — to hopefully bring some deserving music to the attention of a wider audience on campus — I insist that if you have subjected me to the embarrassment of having (accidentally, I presume) read this far into my babbling, that you at least listen to the damn thing. It’s pretty good, if I do say so myself (the soundtrack, not my column — most definitely not my column), so stop being a snob, pretend you don’t know any of the names on the track list, and listen to the songs without doing any song title or artist reading.

Admittedly, part of the reason I love “Juno” so much is because of its soundtrack. “Juno” is the type of film that is impossible to separate from the songs that accompany the happiness, awkwardness, anger, sadness and giddy giggling that the characters manage to elicit in between their sarcastic quips, and while the soundtrack is very much able to stand on its own as a fine piece of mixtapery, it works extraordinarily well with the actual film — more so than most soundtracks do. The movie and the music that goes along with it have a sort of reciprocal arrangement going on, in my mind at least, where the more I love the soundtrack, the more I love the film, and vice versa.

Above all, the soundtrack is heartfelt, honest, careful, evocative, full of teenage exuberance, invincible confidence, celebratory, awkward, uncertain first-love, whimsicality, quirkiness and pure, untainted ingenuousness suffused with self-protective humor. Appropriately starting off with the folksy “All I Want Is You” by the children’s music songwriter Barry Louis Polisar, the first track is one of the happiest songs you will ever hear. It is innocent, uncomplicated and powerful in its simplicity, in its straightforward declarations of childlike love. It’s like “The Giving Tree” in song form. Covering the sweep from sweet, simple, classic love songs like Buddy Holly’s “Dearest” to the mushiest of the mushiest with The Moldy Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You,” to the witty, wistful, softly articulate pattering of Belle & Sebastian, the real glue that holds the soundtrack together is the music of Kimya Dawson.

Dawson dominates the soundtrack with both her own work and her work as one half of The Moldy Peaches (the other half being Adam Green). While Dawson and Green’s song “Anyone Else But You” is often singled out as the highlight of the “Juno” soundtrack, there is so much more to this soundtrack than The Moldy Peaches. It is very much the childlike idealism, the confessional honesty, the sweet concern and persistent spirit that refuses to die, the resilience and inescapable humor of the chorus of strong voices that insist on singing “We won’t stop until somebody calls the cops and even then we’ll start again and just pretend that nothing ever happened” in Dawson’s solo songs that communicate the tangle of teenage awkwardness and fragility that “Juno” confronts us with. I will admit, Dawson’s songs are very girlish, and in many other contexts, they’d probably be a bit too cutesy — but in the context of “Juno”, their simplicity is part of what makes them work. And they do work, and that is one of the greatest feats of "Juno"’s soundtrack: making all these songs that are silly but happy, really simple and childlike, completely transparent but also entirely heartfelt and sincere work, making all of them come together and bring out toothed grins and dimples.

In the end, I only have one objection when it comes to the use of music in the film: Sonic Youth is not “just noise,” Juno MacGuff. Seriously, I expected better from you. Seriously.

Anna is a sophomore. You can reach her at azaloko1@swarthmore.edu.

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