Wes Anderson’s favourite songs by The Rolling Stones
Wes Anderson’s positioning as an auteur in cinema history is reflected in his embrace of the unconventional, his filmography frequently depicting topics that are otherwise avoided: the struggles of disconnected families and the inflicting pains of grief and loss.
Visually striking, his artistic direction has become synonymous with limited colour palettes, zooming shots and two-dimensional studies, all of which build the worlds that fans continue to immerse themselves in.
A distinctive element across his films is his use of carefully curated soundtracks, all of which frequently feature popular music from the 1960s and ’70s. With an evident love of the likes of Nico, Cat Stevens, David Bowie, The Beach Boys and more, Anderson’s tastes permeate each of his films’ stories, with a primary inspiration lying in the music of The Rolling Stones.
The director’s longtime music supervisor, Randall Poster, who is equally credible for the curation of Anderson’s most impactful needle-drops in his work, told The Guardian, “Wes Anderson and I have been using The Rolling Stones in all our movies together. We were saying the other day that they’ve kind of become members of the troupe, and they’ve become very supportive of us.” Thus, the Stones’ classics that feature across Anderson’s work reflect some of his favourites from the band.
Anderson’s feature-length debut, the 1996 crime comedy Bottle Rocket, features a needle-drop of the Stones’ ‘2000 Man’, played during a high-speed chase after a heist has gone terribly wrong. Dignan, played by Owen Wilson, and Anthony, played by Luke Wilson, are faced with the dilemma of going back into the crime scene they are supposed to flee to rescue their accomplice, Applejack, embodied by Jim Ponds, from a cardiac arrest. Originating on the Stones’ psychedelic 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request, ‘2000 Man’ perfectly soundtracks the chaos that ensues with its dizzying upbeat tone.
Two years later, the aesthetic director would employ a Stones classic on another soundtrack, for his second film, Rushmore, that follows a teenager, Jason Schwartzman’s Max, who has a crush on an elementary school teacher, Olivia Williams’ Rosemary Cross, who has also caught the eye of Max’s friend, a rich industrialist named Herman Blume, played by Bill Murray. Initially, Anderson wanted the soundtrack to be solely comprised of music by The Kinks but after listening to an array of artists from the British invasion period during filming, the resulting soundtrack followed suit, including not just The Kinks, but The Who, Faces and more, with the Stones making their customary appearance in the form of ‘I Am Waiting,’ from their 1966 album Aftermath.
Poster highlighted the Stones’ look as a determining factor for Anderson’s inclusion of ‘I Am Waiting’ in Rushmore, explaining in the same interview, “The Stones were these brattish-looking guys in these crisp suits, and I think he found a correspondence in the sound and the image of the band… the Stones’ music speaks to a romantic notion of a past where youth culture was exploding… a certain defiance of authority, which has a currency in that movie.”
A standout from the Stones’ 1968 album Beggar’s Banquet, ‘Street Fighting Man’ is perhaps their most recognisable inclusion in Anderson’s work, appearing in his 2009 stop-motion comedy Fantastic Mr Fox. In this Roald Dahl adaptation, Mr Fox’s thieving spree has caught up to him and sparked the attention of three vindictive farmers who, in retaliation, resolve to dig Mr Fox and his family out of their underground tunnels, their bulldozers layered with ‘Street Fighting Man’ as their destruction disrupts the sleeping Fox family and destroys their home.
Speaking with NME, Anderson reflected on the joy of assembling the perfect soundtrack, noting, “It’s such a fun part, and so much emotion comes into a movie with music. When the pictures and the music come together, you never quite know what the chemistry is going to be. Sometimes it really surprises you with something that is just arresting.”
Wes Anderson’s favourite Rolling Stones songs:
- ‘2000 Man’ – Bottle Rocket (1996)
- ‘I Am Waiting’ – Rushmore (1998)
- ‘Ruby Tuesday’ – The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
- ‘Play with Fire’ – The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
- ‘Street Fighting Man’ – Fantastic Mr Fox (2009)
