It has been hard to escape the makers of T2: Trainspotting this week.
The director (Danny Boyle), the stars (Ewan McGregor, Ewan
Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle) and the film’s composer (Rick
Smith of Underworld) have been on the promotional trail. They have been
discussing the original Trainspotting, which
came out in 1996, as much as they
have the new film. This is not surprising. As well as featuring the same cast,
crew and characters as the first film, T2
constantly harks back to it. The new story touches the old one at the
edges. This includes the music, which echoes the original soundtrack. Smith has
included chords, textures and rhythms from ‘Born Slippy’, the Underworld song
that memorably closed the original.
Much of the
discussion has been about ‘Born Slippy’ itself. Speaking on the Today programme on Tuesday, Smith was
asked how the song came to be in included in Trainspotting. He replied:
It was very serendipitous. Danny [Boyle]
was using our album at the time, Dubnobasswithmyheadman,
as what you would call the heartbeat or the tool that use to get the rhythm of
the film together - without any intention of course of the whole film being
about that album and the music - and took a break one day for a lunch, walked
across the road, out of Soho, into HMV and saw the vinyl for ‘Born Slippy’ in
the racks, bought it, as he tells me, and listened and immediately knew that
that was how he wanted to finish the film.
This is a nice story, but it is not true. I know because it
was one of my old friends, Neil Williams, who suggested the track for the film.
He put the record straight on Friday, writing to Radio 5’s Film Review show, which was featuring Danny Boyle as a guest.
Neil’s letter stated:
I was fortunate enough to be one
of the assistant editors on the original Trainspotting
movie. During the shoot it was my job to synchronise the picture and sound
which meant I had the rare privilege of effectively being the first person to
see and hear all the footage shot for the film. As these remarkable images and
sensational performances came together before my eyes there was this
overwhelming realisation that I was at the centre of something truly special. I
remember Danny sending a music cassette from the shoot in Glasgow to our
cutting rooms in London, which outlined his ideas for source music to
soundtrack the film and on it were Bowie, Blondie, Björk, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop.
There was also a note suggesting that we try and find dance music similar to
the theme produced by Leftfield for Shallow
Grave on which I was a trainee. Danny and I shared similar music tastes and
we both loved the likes of Leftfield, Orbital and Andy Weatherall. I brought in
a collection of CDs with track suggestions written on the cases in white
chinagraph pencil, which we used to mark the edits on the film. I had a then
little known follow-up single to the album Dubnoheadwithmybassman
by Underworld, which was an album I knew Danny liked and I wrote on the CD
‘try track 2’. This was ‘Born Slippy’, a track which was often played at house
parties I went to with my friends. There has been no greater moment in my film
career than when Masahiro, the editor, told me that Danny had chosen it to be included
in the film and showed me the initial edit of the astonishing end sequence.
Some weeks later, after picture lock, I got a call from Andrew McDonald asking
if I could come out to the sound mix and could I bring the ‘Born Slippy’ CD
with me. I travelled out to the mix the same day, was asked if I could leave
the CD there so that the sound technicians could transfer it as they didn’t
have one. Andrew eventually returned the CD to me at the start of the next
project, A Life Less Ordinary, so
essentially it’s my CD that bears the now faded chinagraph note that is
actually on the soundtrack of the film.
After hearing the letter, Boyle replied: ‘Ah. There you go. I remember Neil’.
Many popular music academics argue against the cult of
authorship. They think that it is wrong to look up to musicians and composers
and it is particularly remiss to regard them as having some sort of unique
genius. These theorists view popular music as an essentially collaborative form
and argue that little of it is wholly original.
Nevertheless, as these conflicting stories
reveal, the cult of authorship will not go away. If anything, it is
proliferating. It is extending beyond songwriting and performance to encompass the sourcing of music for films. The ‘Born Slippy’ saga
also illustrates the centralising tendency of authorship. It would seem fitting
if it was Boyle who initiated the use of the track. After all, as Smith’s
story indicates, ‘Born Slippy’ became the pulse of the film, it was the inspiration for a visionary director. It was also the
start of an important collaborative partnership. Smith worked with Boyle on the
opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics, in addition to working on the
sequel film.
But it was
Neil who first chose it. He deserves some credit too. The use of ‘Born Slippy’
helped to make Trainspotting a
landmark film, while the film made ‘Born Slippy’ a landmark song. It had been
largely ignored when it first came out. There had been a buzz about Underworld,
following singles such as ‘Rez’ and ‘Spikee’ and the album Dubnoheadwithmybassman. But ‘Born Slippy’ was something of a flop.
I remember discussing it with Neil when it was released, telling him that I
found it disappointing. He was the only person I knew who was really into it. He
was also the person who said to ignore the instrumental version, which the band
originally promoted as the main mix of the song. For him it was the ‘Nuxx’ mix
that worked. The original single made it to number 57 in the UK charts. A year
and a half later, following on from the Trainspotting
movie, ‘Born Slippy’ was re-released with the Nuxx mix up front. It made it
to number 2. Soon half of Britain was shouting ‘lager, lager, lager, lager’.
