The Death to Smoochy soundtrack and the
mystery music used in the commercial.

A couple of people have written to me, saying that they've also been searching for that mystery song used in background of the commercial for Death to Smoochy. In discussing the song, one of those people helped me figure out what the name of the song is. My search for the exact recording used in the commercial has turned up some interesting results, and I present them here to you.

If you've already read through the background information, you can scroll to the bottom of the page to find the answer.

To recap:

• February and March 2002: TV commercials for the movie Death to Smoochy begin airing. In the background is some sort of 1970's instrumental song that I've heard before and like, but I can't remember the title of.
• 3-25-2002: Comedy Central shows a "behind the scenes" for Smoochy prior to it opening. As mentioned in my movie rules, this is sometimes the death-knell for a movie.
• Friday, 3-29-2002: Death to Smoochy opens in theaters here in the U.S.
• 4-13-2002: Of the 27 movie theaters listed in my paper, 4 of them now have only one showing a day for Smoochy. A fifth theater has three showings a day.
• 5-4-2002: Smoochy is now only playing once a day at the local $3-a-show movie theater. I consider going to that theater and asking how much it would cost me just to watch the credits so I can find out what that song is called (I'll know it when I see the name). [I never got around to doing this, which turned out to be a good thing.]
• 5-20-2002: Smoochy has died (left the $3-a-show theater) sometime in the last week. I never did find a soundtrack, even after checking the official movie website and the main Warner Bros. website.
• Fall 2002: In discussing what the mystery song could be, it's discovered that the song is "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", from Cantata #147, written by J.S. Bach, but the version of the song is a fast-tempo version done on a synthesizer.
• Fall 2002: Wendy Carlos has probably the most famous synthesizer versions of Bach's music, and I find the CD re-issue of Switch-On Bach at the local Borders store. Unfortunately, her version of "Jesu" isn't the version used in the trailer and commercials. (Looking through my record collection, I see I've also bought a used copy of the original vinyl album sometime in the past.)
• 12-27-2002: Smoochy is out on VHS and DVD, and I finally decide to rent it so I can find out the exact version they used. I wound up only having time to watch about the first 30 minutes of the movie and to check the credits. Surprisingly, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" is not used in the movie, just the theatrical trailer. The credits also confirm that no official soundtrack is available.

Here is the list of songs used in the movie, presented in Smoochy-like fashion. This is probably as close to an Official Soundtrack as we're going to get.

So, back to the drawing board in trying to identify "Jesu Version X".

1-1-2003: By playing the section of the trailer that has "Jesu" in it over in a loop, underneath the speech I can hear a piano, a set of "high-hat" cymbals and a synthesizer that sounds somewhat like a harpsicord. If you play the Wendy Carlos version at 1.5x speed, it pretty closely matches the tempo of Version X, but the instruments don't match. It's almost like a Mannheim Steamroller or a Trans-Sierberian Orchestra version.
      A search of other synthesizer versions of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" over at the J.S. Bach website reveals an entry for "21st Century Bach" by Kathy Geisler. "21st Century Bach" was released in 1992, and is currently out of stock in major places like Amazon, Borders, Sam Goody and The Wherehouse, but may still be orderable directly from Well-Tempered Productions. For $10 + S&H, it will be worth it to see if I can still solve this mystery.

"21st Centry Bach" may still turn out not to be the correct version. Back when I first got a Commodore 64 computer, around 1984 or 1985, there was a program someone wrote that displayed scrolling sheet music. It was programmed to just play a few bars of two different songs, starting over with song #1 when song #2 ended. One of those two songs portions was "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". (Classical music was a popular choice for composing music on the C64 because it is public domain. Most of these programs just played music without any sort of animation on-screen, until SidPlayer came along, and then we got to see the notes played on a piano's keyboard as the song played.)
      I have a strong recollection that this "Sheet Music" program is in the same tempo as Jesu Version X. Within the next month or two, I will be unpacking my C64 for a project I will be working on. I think I still have the "Sheet Music" program, so I should be able to see if it is close to Jesu Version X. If it is, that would rule out "21st Century Bach" as being the source of Jesu Version X, but wouldn't help much in finding Version X's source since there was no instructions or notes with the program. (I should also be able to convert it into a WAV or MP3 file and make it available for you to download.)

February 22nd, 2003: The mystery is solved!

My thanks go to the two people that provided me with the answer this week.
      It turns out the song is "Joy" by Apollo 100, which is based on J.S. Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". The song sample found on the Tower Records website is pretty close to the portion of the song used in the Death to Smoochy commercial and theatrical trailer.
      Like Wendy Carlos, Mannheim Steamroller, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Apollo 100 has adapted other instrumental and classical works. According to the biography on the Lycos Music website, "Joy" became a Top 10 hit in the US in 1972, and they later released "Mendelssohn's 4th (2nd Movement)" and an album also entitled "Joy".
      Shortly afterwards, the group broke up, and naturally, Apollo 100's albums are now out of print. A quick search did turn up a few compilation CDs that have "Joy" on them. Part of that search also led me to an old website that contains information on a second Apollo 100 album: "Masterpieces", that the Lycos Music website didn't mention.
 

Here are the places that you can buy a CD with either "Joy" or "Mendelssohn's 4th (2nd Movement)" on them. Some of these will also be mentioned because they contain either favorite songs of mine, or because they also have similar songs. Sort of like the "customers who bought this title also bought..." notation that you see on Amazon.com.

Post script:
      The search to find the Mystery song used in the commercial and theatrical trailer turned out to be more interesting than the movie itself. In fact, I probably wouldn't have given Death to Smoochy another moment's thought after I heard the review that said Robin Williams spouts so much profanity in the movie that it seems like he was paid by the word (said by Roger Ebert, I believe, on the Ebert & Roeper At the Movies show) if Warner Bros. has just put a song list up on their website and said "We also used 'Joy' by Apollo 100 in the trailer".
      While it would be nice to be able to get a soundtrack so I could listen to the "Rainbow Randolph" and "Smoochy's Magic Jungle" themes, maybe it's better that Warner Bros. didn't make one. I wouldn't have located the albums above that have songs I've been interested in as long as when I originally heard "Joy" on the radio. In fact, as soon as I upload this page, I'm heading over to the mall to see if they have any of them in stock. (I usually buy products locally whenever I can, and only buy mail-order if local places don't have it.)

 
(By the way, I wound up renting Monkeybone at the same time as Smoochy. You can get a soundtrack for Monkeybone from Varèse Saraband.)

 
April 9, 2006 addition:
      I have a new page discussing the five versions of "Man of Constant Sorrow" that have been released as part of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?, its music video and its soundtrack.

Read the TV rules — Return to the Movie rules
Return to the foyer — Return to Fluff & Stuff main page