And the radio man says...

Copyright Ian Shane

08 June 2010

The Museum Song - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

For many years, I just called it the “museum song”. That’s really how I knew it. In the one John Hughes film that didn’t make me want to throw things (a topic for a future discussion…maybe in August), there was this acoustic guitar and saxophone song that played as Ferris, Cameron and Sloane took their day off to the Art Institute in Chicago. It’s one of those film moments that will live in my memory forever.

Years had passed until I watched the film again; borrowing it from my then roommate. Seeing it again for the first time in over fifteen years, I was stunned when I realized it was a cover of “Please, Please, Please Let me Get What I Want.” When I mentioned it to her (which, by the way, she is a self professed Smiths fan), she argued with me that it wasn’t. Even after playing the scene for her and the song back to back, she still didn’t believe me. (Side note: She has since denied that this happened. However, D was a witness to this and can verify the story).

The Dream Academy cover was released exclusively in the UK. This is a little treat that Hughes gave us for the movie (as well as The English Beat’s “March of the Swivelheads”). It’s a song that I listened to many times before my own trip to the Art Institute last winter. The song ran through my head as I stood in front of Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte".

Since then, another cover of this song has surfaced, and was a part of another movie. The latest version, recorded by She and Him, features a female vocalist.

However, as the days get nicer, I look out my window at work and think about having my own day off. Maybe I could con D’s boss so I can get her out of work and we could go to the Minnesota Institute of Art.

I know what song I’d play on the way there.  


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