Alan Rickman’s 10 favourite songs of all time
With one of the acting world’s most distinguished voices and presence, Alan Rickman stepped into the shoes of characters that would persist across generations.
Whether he was playing a villainous ex-radical in the action-driven Die Hard or the intimidating and misunderstood Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, Rickman brought humanity to each of his characters.
One of his most versatile roles was in a musical adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by none other than goddamn Tim Burton. In the horror musical, Rickman assumes the role of Judge Turpin, one of the primary villains that Johnny Depp’s murderous Todd has his vengeful eye on. Rickman’s haunting drone as he sings remains one of the highlights of the film.
While stepping into another musical role, playing the founder of CBGBs, Hilly Kristal, Rickman spoke about his tastes and how they were shaped as a young art student. “England in the ‘60s and the ‘70s was everything that history has said,” he told the Huffington Post. “It was phenomenally exciting, musically. One was very shaped by that.” While growing up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones set a musical precedent, bands like the Police, Talking Heads and Blondie stuck in his mind as he came of age.
Luckily, Rickman curated a list of his top ten favourite songs, calling them “songs to have grown up with”. His first pick is ‘I Won’t Dance’ by Fred Astaire, whom Rickman calls, “My hero. Completely disciplined, completely free.” Sung in the 1953 film Roberta, the song is a sweet nod to Rickman’s unwavering passion for film and its greatest talents. He chooses another song from a film: Keith Carradine’s ‘I’m Easy’, which appears in Robert Altman’s 1975 classic Nashville.
Rickman paints a picture of his choice for a Bob Dylan classic, ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’. He describes a day in his life at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London: “10am. Monday morning. RADA student. Our brilliant teacher, June Kemp, gets us moving.”
The nine-minute song has a cult-like love from Dylan devotees, and Rickman’s choice shows a song’s ability to bring back memories from lifetimes ago, as this one does for him. The Righteous Brothers’ ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’ transports Rickman in a similar way, prompting a vision: “Last dance at the party. A red light bulb. The dregs of cheap wine.”
Rickman goes on to implore the reader to give his picks their fair chance. For Roberta Flack’s ‘The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face’, he commands, “Just listen.” For Martha and the Vandellas’ ‘Dancing in the Street’, he emphasises, “Just dance.” He includes one choice with little explanation: Joni Mitchell’s ‘Real Good for Free’, which she wrote after watching a New York sidewalk musician. “She says it all, really,” Rickman surmises. “No comment required.”
The actor’s choices for his life’s favourite songs reflect his nostalgic senses. Across a variety of genres and styles, each song seemingly takes him back to a moment in time.
