The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – “Bellbottoms”

“It basically inspired the whole movie in a way. I was 20 or 21 when the album Orange first came out, and I [played] “Bellbottoms” on repeat on this audio cassette I had of it. I don’t think I actually even bought it—I dubbed somebody else’s copy because I didn’t have any money at the time. I would listen to the song, and I could imagine a car chase. And I wasn’t even thinking about a particular film, it was more about not being able to listen to the song without seeing a car chase in my head. So at some point, I had to come up with something and I had to write a theme to go along with that idea and this vision I had of this car chase. And that, in turn, spawned the idea of Baby trying to soundtrack the entire movie. You’re basically seeing the story through the ears of the main character.”

Link: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a56151/edgar-wright-baby-driver-soundtrack/

“”Bellbottoms,” The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (1995)

I mean, that song was never not going to be in the movie. It all starts there, with that weird moment of synesthesia – it wasn’t even “Oh, I know this will be the opening of a movie.” It was just something that appeared to me when I heard the song. But over the years, I had this sequence, and I knew it was the germ of something but I didn’t know what.

Then I thought: What if the getaway driver is listening to that track? Suddenly, it was the starting point for some sort of diegetic action-musical … taking what I love about the movies of Tarantino and John Landis and Scorsese and putting it into one full movie. Or American Graffitti, which is really the first diegetic musical. It’s one of the first movies I can think of where the pop soundtrack really isn’t a score – it’s all coming from whatever people are listening to onscreen.”

Link: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/baby-driver-edgar-wright-on-staging-those-musical-action-scenes-w489919