The song that changed Martin Scorsese’s life forever: “I listened to it obsessively”
American filmmaker Martin Scorsese has enjoyed one of Hollywood’s longest-running, successful filmmaking careers. Since the late 1960s, Scorsese has made 27 feature films, most of which have been highly acclaimed, alongside 17 documentaries.
With his critically acclaimed features, like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, Scorsese also boasts credits for some of the most well-loved music documentaries, such as The Last Waltz, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and George Harrison: Living in the Material World.
Scorsese’s intense love for music shines through each documentary, imbuing them with an innate sense of personality that makes them feel incredibly passionate and celebratory. The filmmaker once revealed to PBS: “If I could have played guitar, really played it, I never would have become a filmmaker.”
While Scorsese has made feature documentaries about rock ‘n’ roll and folk artists, such as The Band and Bob Dylan, his true love lies with the blues. Thus, in 2003, he produced a series called The Blues, which featured seven episodes about the genre directed by filmmakers such as Wim Wenders, Clint Eastwood, Richard Pearce and himself.
The director explained: “The sense of continuity and transformation in the blues, the way past, present, and future are joined as one dynamic creative entity, never ceases to amaze me.” For Scorsese, there was one song that changed everything for him, spurring him to explore the blues even further.
“One day, around 1958, I remember hearing something that was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. I’ll never forget the first time I heard the sound of that guitar. The music was demanding, ‘Listen to me!’ I ran to get a pencil and paper and wrote down the name,” he recalled. The song was ‘See See Rider’ by Lead Belly, which led Scorsese to run to the nearest record store and buy a copy. “I listened to it obsessively. Lead Belly’s music opened something up for me.”
From then on, Scorsese consumed as much music as he could, finding a particular affinity with the blues. He concluded, “When you listen to Lead Belly, or Son House, or Robert Johnson, or John Lee Hooker, or Charley Patton, or Muddy Waters, you’re moved, your heart is shaken, you’re carried and inspired by its visceral energy, and its rock-solid emotional truth. You go right to the heart of what it is to be human, the condition of being human. That’s the blues.”
