When writing the big-screen adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn, Edward Nortons upcoming directorial effort, the actor knew early on that he wanted his longtime friend Thom Yorke to contribute music to the Fifties-set drama.
Thom is so good at weaving together personal anguish and the crushing politics of the time, Norton tells Rolling Stone before quoting Radioheads Paranoid Android. When I am king, you will be first against the wall.' Norton compares the incisiveness and timelessness of Yorkes music to the profoundly melancholy and very political songs of Billie Holiday, like Strange Fruit. The way that you get the sense in his songs of the difficulty of holding on to your own spirit within times that feel oppressive, and that is so much the straddle that is taking place in this film, which is loneliness and institutional depression and racism, he adds.
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After Norton emailed Yorke his in-the-works screenplay, the singer responded a few weeks later with a piano demo of what would become Daily Battles, the musical centerpiece of Motherless Brooklyn. Ahead of the films premiere at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, Rolling Stone is debuting both Yorkes Daily Battles, featuring his Atoms for Peace bandmate Flea on bass and trumpet, as well as Wynton Marsalis jazz arrangement of the track. Both versions will feature on a split 7 out October 4th, as well as the Motherless Brooklyn soundtrack out October 25th. Both the seven-inch single and the soundtrack are available to pre-order now.
To have [Yorke] write a song for the movie in response to absorbing what the movie and the character are aiming at is a very different thing, Norton adds. Its like Barbra Streisand and Memories for The Way We Were;sometimes it can define a thing. Like Lady Gaga, what those guys did with Shallow in [A Star Is Born], thats a stunning song that rises up in the film and out of the film. It rises organically out of the story of the film and it gives you shivers, its really a special thing when that happens.
Daily Battles features in a somber sequence where Nortons Lionel, a Tourettes-suffering detective investigating the death of his mentor in 1950s New York, returns home to his apartment. The characters frayed emotions, everyday struggles and isolation are captured in the front half of Yorkes ballad; the second half of the song, featuring Fleas tinkered-with trumpet melodies, unfurls after Lionel attempts to unmoor from his reality.
What I needed in terms of when the characters smokes hash or opium and starts to dream, it speeds this dreamy sense of the character slipping into his haze and its wonderful, Norton says of Fleas contribution. It brought so much more to it than even ever hoped.
Norton admits that, as both the director and actor in the Daily Battles sequence, he felt additional pressure to elevate the scene to match Yorkes powerful contribution. In the place where youre using Thoms song, you realize youre cutting a sequence. You need to shape around the song and it needs to live in a certain part of the film [and] make that feel like that its not plastered on to it; like its rising out of the film itself, Norton says. Not that its a music video, but you feel a certain thing of, Man, I hope I can make this work in an organic way within in the film, and I think we did. I love where it sits in the film.
For Marsalis arrangement, which slayed Yorke when Norton played it for him, the jazz great recruited protgs like pianist Isaiah J. Thompson and bassist Russell Hall, veteran saxophonist Jerry Weldon and Pharoah Sanders drummer Joe Farnsworth to create what Norton called a ballad done by Miles Davis in 57 for a pivotal jazz club scene within the film.
Following its premiere at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival and closing slot at the 2019 New York Film Festival, Motherless Brooklyn, an adaptation of Jonathan Lethems 1999 novel, will open in theaters November 1st.
As Norton previously told Rolling Stone, there is risk in collaborating with friends in artistic endeavors, but thankfully the experience on Motherless Brooklyn only served to strengthen the film, friendships intact.
I cant lie: Thom and Wynton, these are friends but theyre also people who have been part of the soundtrack in my life. You dont want it to go badly, but when you make the bet and push each other up into something that youre all thrilled with, its a dream come true, Norton says. Its a very special feeling.