Recently I posted a link for a movie trailer on FaceBook that would garner the biggest response from my family & friends that I ever received (outside of my birthday). The reason I posted the link was because my song Fly Like The Wind is actually in the last 35 seconds of the trailer for the Indie film Better Start Running (originally called Monumental). The movie was supposed to be released in late 2017 but nothing ever happened. So for over a year I knew I had a song in the movie but had seen or knew little of nothing more than that.
I have to admit I was taken by surprise when I saw the trailer for the 1st time because I was just curious to see what the movie was about after all this time. Plus, there are some recognizable names in the film like Oscar winner Jeremy Irons, so it can’ be too shabby. lol The last thing I expected to hear was Fly Like The Wind playing over a large chunk of the final sequences of the trailer!! Lol How cool is that??!! Obviously, very cool because my FaceBook page lit up like never before! 🙂
Hearing my song in the Better Start Running movie trailer made me think about writing and recording Fly Like The Wind, and the long strange trip it took to get there. Every step of the way seemed to set up the next thing that would happen. Understand that I’m talking about a song I wrote and recorded in 1985. Each step took 10-20 years to occur but without that step, Fly Like The Wind would not be in this movie. So how did it happen?
Back in 1985 I was still a struggling artist trying to get a record deal (this is 20 years before my mid-life crisis to become DownTown Mystic). I decided that I would write the best commercial songs I could as an artist/writer/producer to showcase my abilities and talents. These songs had to sound like the songs that were heard on MTV & Radio at that time. In 1985 I was committed to using the cutting edge tools available at the time like a Linn Drum machine and synths to fashion a sound that would be immediately recognizable.
Fly Like The Wind was written to be a “hit song” (whatever that is), nothing more and nothing less. Just get to the chorus and the hook as quickly as possible and repeat. The one thing I remember about working on the track was that I wanted the snare drum on the verses to sound HUGE. I was having trouble getting what I wanted so much so that I called Garry Tallent and asked him to come to the studio to help me out. Luckily, Garry drove over and we worked for over 2 hours using the state of the art PCM Sound module to finally get that HUGE 80s snare sound!! 🙂
Unfortunately, there would not be any record deal and I would never get to know if I had written a “hit song”. I finally decided to give up on being a struggling artist and become a struggling publisher, starting my company Sha-La Music. I continued to write and record songs and send them out to other artists looking for material. I sent Fly Like The Wind to quite a few but with no luck. In the 1990s I began to manage artists. My 1st client was a band that had a release in the UK and I began to do business in Europe for them.
It was the mid ‘90s and the CD was now the standard used for recording. I had all of my songs on reel to reel and cassette tapes, so I really wanted to get my best recordings on a CD. I was no longer an artist but I saw a chance to create a project for the purposes of getting my music released on CD. I called the project Used Records and used the nom de plume of Walker Reeves as the artist behind Used Records. I sold the project to a German label called Long Island Records, run by a very nice chap named Sondi. I signed a Licensing Deal for Used Records (which included Fly Like The Wind ) with Sondi, who unfortunately passed away much too soon in the early 2000s. Used Records was a bust but I got my CD. 🙂
I mention the Used Records CD because, without it, my future sync licensing success would be in jeopardy. Doing business in Europe took me to Midem in Cannes, France. Midem is the largest and most important International Music Business event that takes place every year. I attended Midem a few times in the 90s and went back in 2011, getting a Licensing Deal with another German Label, this time for DownTown Mystic. I mention this because I met a great character named Eddie Caldwell from Chicago there that year. We hit it off and made plans to do business together.
I mention Eddie because a year or 2 later he sends me an email asking if I have any songs that were actually recorded in the 80s, particularly in 1984-85. Now I ask you, what are the odds? Of course I tell Eddie that I do happen to have some songs recorded in the very period he’s looking for and Eddie says to send them ASAP!! It turns out that Eddie has managed to get to probably the #1 Music Supervisor in LA—Alexandra Patsavas of Chop Shop Music, and she’s looking for music for a new show she’s working on called The Carrie Diaries, a sort of prequel to Sex and The City. Not only that but she wants authentic sounding 80s music and it has to be recorded in 1984-85. WTF??!!
This is a HUGE opportunity!!! The problem for me is I don’t have any digital files of the songs to send to Eddie. But wait…I remember I have a copy of the Used Records CD!! All I need to do is convert the cd to digital files…YES Used Records!! Now Alexandra Patsavas has a reputation for having “great ears”. She’s been known to discover “hit songs” for her TV shows. Of the 3 songs that I send to Eddie, she picks Fly Like The Wind, which appears on the last show of the 1st season of The Carrie Diaries. There’s a party going on at the hip fashion magazine that Carrie works at and playing in the background at the party is Fly Like The Wind!! 🙂
I had to hand it to Alexandra Patsavas for having “great ears”. She picked the best song of the ones I sent to Eddie. As far as I ‘m concerned, her picking Fly Like The Wind was an affirmation for me that I had written a “hit song”. For the 2nd season she picked another one of my best songs—And You Know Why. Eddie wanted to release the songs he had sent to Chop Shop as an independent project, so I told him to call it Used Records and even sent him the cover art from the original cd. YES… Used Records rides again!!
A couple of years go by and Eddie tells me he has a deal for Fly Like The Wind to be in a movie called Monumental. I’m thinking “how cool is that to get the same song picked again”? I also thought they wanted it because the movie must take place in the 80s. So I was even more surprised when I found out that Monumental was now being called Better Start Running and after seeing the trailer, the movie was not set in the 80s. They must have really liked the song!
I told you it was a long strange trip. If I hadn’t become a manager and started doing business in Europe, I wouldn’t have gone to Midem or made a deal to create the Used Records CD. Years later when I wanted to get a deal in Europe for DownTown Mystic, I went to Midem again and met Eddie Caldwell there. If I hadn’t met Eddie Caldwell I probably would never have a 30 year old song, that I all but forgot about, become my biggest sync success to date. Without the Used Records CD I wouldn’t have been able to create the digital files needed to send that song to Eddie. As I stated earlier, what are the odds??!! 🙂