Last night I was driving home very late from a fabulous Moth Mainstage at the Somerville Theater near Boston. There are few things better than a good story well told and the evening was full of them. Driving home, I played the radio very loud to keep myself awake, singing badly along. Then a classic blared: The Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” I immediately thought of the funeral scene from The Big Chill.
Right up there with a good story well told is a movie scene where the music is superbly matched, making the story that much richer (my favorite most recent example is from The Silver Linings Playbook, where Pat frantically searches for his wedding video while Led Zeppelin sings his madness for him). Even though it was 1 a.m. when I got home, I googled to see if YouTube had any footage of the Big Chill funeral scene. It’s not there in it’s entirety, but there’s enough to see the brilliance. It’s a two parter. Enjoy. I’ve also included an amazing spoken word story by a 15-year-old that is accompanied by music, literally and in the story. Unbelievable.