Since “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a very serious and harrowing movie, I thought it would be funny if it had a jaunty, shufflin’, New Orleans-y theme song by Randy Newman.
This is what I came up with. Being a huge fan of Randy Newman, his older stuff even more than his movie songs, came in handy. The music and structure are basically a combination of “I Love to See You Smile” (from “Parenthood”) and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (from “Toy Story”), though I guess part of the joke is that they also resemble many of Newman’s other movie songs.
Please note that the song has SPOILERS for “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” I don’t think it’s anything that would totally ruin the movie for you — the Very Bad Thing that Kevin did is alluded to pretty early in the film — but there’s your warning nonetheless. (The movie will be released in more theaters later this month.)
(Note: I should mention that the “Randy Newman sings inappropriately merry song for serious movie” idea is not original to me. The comedy duo of Paul & Storm did one for “The Passion of the Christ” several years ago. I don’t think I actually heard the song at the time, but I did hear about it and can definitely trace the concept back to them. And of course the idea of “catchy tune for un-catchy movie” goes at least as far back as Tom Lehrer’s proposed theme song for the movie version of “Oedipus Rex,” a song that I think about at least once a week.)
