Now, this one I really enjoyed making, I have to admit. The worst blogger ever here, delivering the goods, once again. Earlier this week, I was going through The 22 Most Overplayed Songs in Movies list, and I realized: man, I never said I would do these in order, did I? After I replaced Low Rider in Gone In Sixty Seconds, I was definitely still in a badass kind of mood, so I skipped through the list until I found something that felt right: George Thorogood and the Destroyers' "Bad to the Bone".
Now, you may be asking yourself: how does a classic like Bad to the Bone become such a cringy song? I asked myself the same question, until I found out it was featured in a modest total of 25 feature films since its release date. That's something, man, especially when you have a variety of films where you can find both the type of Terminator 2 and Lethal Weapon, and the type of The Parent Trap and Megamind. The source of the cringe has been found.
As for the movie choice, as I said before, it needed to be badass, so I ended up picking one of my childhood heroes, Arnold Schwarzenegger. To me, the bar scene and the sequence that follows it, where he steals the motorcycle in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, is the pure definition of badass, right to the bone. The scene sets the whole tone for the movie: this badass machine is taking over the world, and no man can do anything about it. And the song? The song is just there to reinforce the badassness. You could play the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony on this scene, and it would still be badass, but that's not the point:
My take on this scene, and the song specifically, was pretty much the same as the original. This one had to sound like essence of terminator, and I couldn't get it wrong. It had to be tough, powerful, punchy, and definitely bluesy. Once again, tempo and key play a crucial role to achieve that badass feeling, so I tried to stick to the original as much as possible. The drums and bass carry most of the weight of the song, but the guitars add all of the taste to it. Like I said before, you could play Barney songs to Arnold walking down those stairs, and you'd still get goosebumps:
The feeling is pretty similar, but without the embarrassment you get when you remember you've also seen a 12 years old Lindsay Lohan walk to the beat of this badass anthem. It's not the song's fault, that's for sure, but at least the cringe has been removed from Terminator now.
Did you like my take on "Bad to the Bone" for Terminator 2: Judgement Day? Did you absolutely hate it? Let me know in comment section down below, or in any of my social media. Until next time, folks, and remember: choose life, choose a real career.
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