Inherent Bummer Playlists: Walking into a Bar
Wild America, the 1997 Disney drama staring teen heartthrob Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Devon Sawa, and I don’t dare mention the last, has a phenomenal soundtrack. So superb is this compilation, it has followed me all these years since I first laid eyes upon the brothers Stouffer.
For those who haven’t seen, allow me to provide a brief plot treatment: the year is 1975, give or take a couple, and budding filmmaker, Marty, commandeers the family Land Cruiser for a cross country road trip on which he plans to document North America’s abundant wildlife. Brother number two joins as co-pilot. They take off from Arkansas with a stowaway, youngest brother, JTT. Adventure ensues. Alligators, moose, grizzly bears, and even some California hippies make appearances. Nobody dies. A National Geographic star is born.
Toward the beginning of the movie, there’s a scene where two Jackie-O lookin’ “college girls” pull into the muddy track where the brothers are racing. Predictably, our ingenues are in a Mustang. They park. As they get out, in one perfectly choreographed maneuver that emphasizes their long, slender legs, CCR’s Susie Q plays. I like the way you walk. I like the way you talk.
No one has ever been sexier. And this fact clearly resonated in my impressionable, prepubescent brain because I’ve long imagined myself walking into a room as those silky, liquid chords thrum. I’ve thought about it often enough that I designed an entire playlist for this moment: Walking into a Bar.
Soon, things got conceptually out of hand. Not all bars are created equal. Some seem dark and unappealing when really they’re full of mythical regulars and infinite good times. Others are impeccably decorated and filled with an air of prestige, but an ambience that you soon find out is pneumatic and overpriced. Most are just run-of-the-mill. Maybe the bar is actually an after-hours club. My point? Lots of variables influenced the song selection of this playlist: the genre of bar, my emotional state when entering said bar, the agreeableness of its patrons, its geographical location, its capacity, etc.
The Big Inherent Bummer here is that we’re stuck in “quar” and won’t be walking into any bars anytime soon. But don’t fret. Consider this an opportunity to create and refine your very own Walking into a Bar playlist. Practice your entrance. Collect pointers from your roommate or your loved one or if you live alone, from the internet. Send it to me if you’d like. Whatever you do, make it fresh so that when you inevitably return to those beloved hightop seats, all eyes will be on you…or forlornly on the pint under them if that’s more your style. —Eleanor Sheehan
