The English rock band British Sea Power have just released a CD called MAN OF ARAN, which contains the CD of a soundtrack they composed for Robert J. Flaherty's 1934 docu-drama, plus a DVD of the film with the new soundtrack. Actually there are five soundtrack options, because there are two different stereo mixes of the studio recording, two more of a live performance at the Edinburgh Film Festival, and one bonus score that's spare and minimal in comparison with the roaring guitar-based material they composed for their main track.
What the disc doesn't have is the actual soundtrack, composed by John Greenwood and based on Irish folk tunes. And of course the dialogue is gone as well, though you can turn on subtitles to see what it would have been. It's an odd type of project that I think of as a gimmick to attract young hipsters to sell-out festival screenings of the type of movies they haven't been exposed to before. I've written a review that will post soon on PopMatters, but right now I want to talk about Jeff Alexander.
The BSP score is naturally instrumental and original, but there's one brief track where distant ghostly lyrics are sung over the images of the woman who gathers seaweed and arranges it for the planting of potatoes. It was a strangely familiar tune, a folk tune, but something about it made me wonder if it was "real". Checking the credits, I see this piece is "Come Wander with Me" by Jeff Alexander.
Whoa! This song has its own Wikipedia entry--well, actually it's an entry for the TWILIGHT ZONE episode for which Alexander wrote the song (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Wander_With_Me). The episode is about a doomed singer scouting for a new song that he wants to turn into a hit.
It turns out this song is all over the place in the new millennium. It was on the soundtrack of THE BROWN BUNNY; I saw that film but don't remember the song in it and didn't recognize it at the time.
It's also been used in a Dutch commercial that uses Magritte-esque images. It was used in the last film of a series of shorts called LITTLE MINX, inspired by the Exquisite Corpse writing game. Each filmmaker had to pick up where the other left off, and the final film uses this song. Apparently the series and the final film have been very popular and received a lot of bloggage. This too has a Wikipedia page with many links; the films can be seen in various ways, since they were created for alternative distribution via iPhones etc. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Minx.
The song has also shown up on several CDs, including one compilation curated by Air (the neo-loungy French band). It's also been covered on an album called "Air" from Dutch "group" Agua de Annique (actually a woman solo artist); one wonders if she knew the Air CD or saw the Dutch TV commercial, or both. Now a critics' darling band has done a version of this faux-folktune for attachment to a 70 year-old faux-documentary.
Jeff Alexander's not exactly hitting the top 40, but he's popping up all over the world of alternative hipness. What TWILIGHT ZONE composers will next face this pop rediscovery? Perhaps we can convince Susan Boyle to cover Bernard Herrmann's "Salammbo" aria from CITIZEN KANE. | 
