Right Back Where We Started From

Song: Right Back Where We Started From
Artist: Maxine Nightingale
Album: Right Back Where We Started From





Let’s say that you’ve just inherited a hotel from an eccentric yet distant relative… but when you go to check it out, you realize it’s a dump in wild disrepair, but the taxes alone will put you in debt unless you do SOMETHING to it and make it work for you. Or you lie your way to a great job only to paint yourself into a corner when they ask you to throw the big important company party… can your rag-tag team of friends help you make it happen because you don’t have the money to actually do it for some contrived reason? Or maybe you go on summer vacation only to realize that your summer beach community is going to loose their little piece of heaven to resort developers… unless you can fix up that old broke-down sailboat in the harbor, and enter and WIN the annual boat race and the huge cash prize. What would make all of those possible? A killer music montage of course!

Maxine Nightingale’s 1976 hit “Right Back Where We Started From” is just the type of song used in moments like this… when showing the actual WORK involved in some borderline ridiculous “let’s get to it!” scenario would be way boring… just show the fun stuff. Because when I am fixing up my hotel (and saving my retirement fund) and I get my scrappy (but hilariously rag-tag) group of friends and family together to help, it’s really only important to show the moments when we all sing along together while working. You do that to right? Or maybe all the good bouncy vibes will mend every psychological problem that exists within our complex, but surprisingly mend-able relationships. I LOVE when that happens in real life.

Like Katrina and the Waves’ 80’s hit “Walking on Sunshine,” “Right Back Where We’ve Started From” has been used in various movies and trailers for these kinds of moments… and while implausible realistically, the music montage is a standard device in movies, so keep the bouncy songs coming!

Maxine Nightingale was an English R&B singer and saw the title track to her first album climb to #8 on the U.K. charts and #2 here in the U.S. She struggled to match the songs success, and never topped it, but did have a top five hit with “Lead Me On,” a ballad, in 1979. Given her… well, two-hit-wonder status, she’s a good candidate for the music montage track as most people wouldn’t know her by name, but EVERYONE knows the song… perfect.

While I am being a bit snarky here, I actually think this is a great song. I heard it out in a bar early last week and found myself bopping along to it… almost an involuntary reflex. What struck me is when I looked around and saw a few others doing so as well… like the song had somehow been used subliminally on all of us. I am sure I wasn’t the only one that felt like we should all join together in an impromptu sing and dance-a-long around the bar… or maybe even grab a mop and bucket and get that place in shape y’all! Besides, we can’t let that corporate bar that’s moving in across the street take our business and help close the one place that means so much to the tiny, yet hilariously rag-tag, little community we have! But then again… I’m ALWAYS in those kinds of situations.

Anyhow, enjoy.

What are your favorite music montage songs… or which songs do you think are perfect, yet thus far unused, for this purpose?

OMG… this really DOES happen!