Soundtrack for a porn movie
"No, you have not landed on Slipped Disc by mistake. Respected electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze tells the story himself.
The origins of "Body Love" are quite funny. I received a call from a movie producer named Manfred Menz and I wound up becoming his principal composer for a period of time. Amongst others, I composed the "Barracuda" soundtrack for him [1978, previously unreleased on album]. This led to a friendship which lasts till today. Menz now lives in Malibu, California where I visited him a couple of years ago. Anyway, this guy calls me and asks if I would compose the score to a porn movie. I said: "Porn? Nah, I don't do that kind of thing".
As it turned out, the director of the movie, Lasse Braun, had already shot it and had used my albums "Timewind" [1975] and "Moondawn" [1976] as a kind of "working soundtrack". This was obvious because the couples in the film were moving in time to my grooves! They were almost done with the film, which was very expensive for a porno - 1 million German Marks, and they were now looking for the final music. First they tried it with normal pop music but that didn't work out. So Lasse said to Manfred "Let's simply ask Schulze to compose a soundtrack that's similar to "Moondawn"!
I drove down to Manfred's with my, then French girlfriend Blanche. We watched the movie and thought "Well, it's really not too bad!" Besides, there wasn't too much dialogue in it so you could let the music run through it all the way. Therefore I didn't need to write two minutes here, three minutes there until the next piece of dialogue or sound effect occurred. I had the opportunity of delivering a genuine composition.
Directeur Lasse Braun said: "Just give me the music, one or one and a half hours worth. I'll put the music to the movie and just fade it out in the parts where there shouldn't be any music." That fit in with me because that's my method of working anyway. I just had to keep an eye on the timing. It had to be in line with the timing for "Moondawn" because the couples in the film bobbed up and down accordingly.
An extract from Lasse Braun's Body Love is on YouTube. But, sorry to disappoint, that clip does not live up to the promise of my clickbait - I'm learning from someone else - headline. Anyway, if Stravinsky could compose a Circus Polka for the Barnum and Baily Circus and endorse Cartier watches, why can't Klaus Schulze provide the soundtrack for a porn movie?
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