Operation Screenshot (Films of the 2000s): Greg Mottola's Adventureland (2009)

"They were gonna meet on a Rocky Mountain street
Two bashful hearts beat in advance
Their hands were gonna sweat, It was all set
She ain't showed up yet, still a good chance

It's a love untold

Checking on her face, checks his sleeve for his ace
And both just in case wear clean underwear
Games would be played excuses would be made
The stupid things they said, in their prayers

Oh about a love untold

Soft hands slowly move across the blank white page
Thinking of words for my silent lips and fingers to obey

They were gonna meet on a crummy little street
It never came to be I'm told
Does anyone recall the saddest love of all
The one that lets you fall with nothing to hold

Just another love untold"

-Paul Westerberg-

Classic Song Chronicles: "Kentucky Rain" by Eddie Rabbitt

Elvis Presley must have been elated on the evening February 19th, 1969. After all, a marathon all night session just two nights earlier had proven that his initial run at Memphis' American Sound Studios the month before hadn’t been a fluke. He would have had no way of knowing that he was in the midst of a period that would one day be considered one of the most important in rock history, now would he have realized how many artists would build an entire career off the resurgent energy those sessions produced. He wouldn’t have been thinking along those lines. Instead it is easy to imagine that Elvis Presley probably felt more grateful than anything else, as he had to know that he hadn’t delivered music this raw and powerful for vinyl since that session in 67 that produced his take on Jerry Reed’s "Guitar Man".
That February evening would turn out to be one of the less productive song wise of Elvis’ entire run with producer Chips Moman at American Sound. While most of the sessions produced at least three master’s per evening, this one only managed two, but they were both stunners. In the late part of the evening into the early morning hours, Presley would deliver a devastating version of Jerry Butler’s “Only the Strong Survive”, a song that seemed to sum up his entire heroic stand at American Sound in 69. Elvis seemed even more passionate though about the song he spent hours on in the earlier part of the evening, a haunting and eerie tale about a wanderer looking for a long lost love on a rainy Kentucky day.
Eddie Rabbitt was nearing thirty years old in 1969 and he must have been wondering when his big break was coming. The Brooklyn born artist had been building a solid reputation as one of Nashville’s top songwriters throughout the mid to late sixties, but he had yet to deliver a song that he could really build a career on.
Northern Irish boy Rabbitt might have seemed an odd candidate for the Tennessee music scene, but since he was a young man he had seen a connection between America’s country music and the Irish music his father had played him as a youth. Rabbitt recalled in an interview that music and writing had always been a passion of his and that he “was 12 years old” when he penned his first song, a ballad entitled “Susie”.
Rabbitt must have felt a long way from home in the mid-sixties as he struggled to get his words and music to quality artists. There was something special about the young and exceptionally good looking young writer though, and Chips Moman realized it and continually asked Rabbitt for material.
Rabbitt’s big break came courtesy of controversial Presley co-conspirator Lamar Fike who heard a demo of Rabbit’s “Kentucky Rain” in the late part of 68. Rabbitt recalled after months of waiting the day that Fike called him up with the news that not only did Elvis want to record the track but that he wanted to, “put it out as his next A-Side single.” Rabbitt was stunned and said that it felt like, “even more than a dream” and that it made him finally feel like he, “was a songwriter after all.”
In hindsight, had Eddie Rabbitt recorded “Kentucky Rain” himself it could have easily broken him as a solo recording star, but that was to come later and even Rabbitt knew that nothing he could have done could have matched the majesty of Presley’s impassioned take.
Elvis, Chips and the legendary American Sound band began working on "Kentucky Rain" diligently just past 7:30 on that fateful February evening. Presley historian Ernst Jorgensen wrote in the book on Elvis’ sessions that "Kentucky Rain", “wasn’t an easy song for the musicians to grasp” and the recording ended up taking hours, “to arrive at a truly accomplished rendition-but that it was worth it.”



While the American Sound band and Moman might have found Rabbitt’s song tricky, Elvis fell right into its groove and all of his vocal takes that night were mesmerizing. Moman reportedly got so excited listening to Elvis’ vocals during each take that he got co-producer Felton Jarvis to act, “as a cheerleader” in efforts to, “spur (Presley) onward” throughout the night. Just over a year before, Presley had been stuck in Hollywood recording a song about a bull, so standing in American Studios that night singing such an adult and complex song as “Kentucky Rain” must have been a truly emotional experience for him.
Of course, the story of “Kentucky Rain” doesn’t begin and end with Elvis Presley’s magical vocal take. The American Studio band was arguably the best in the world in 1969, and everything from Bobbie Wood’s piano work to the incomparable guitar playing of Reggie Young clicks dramatically in “Kentucky Rain”. It is one of the great American Studio recordings…a bruised, powerhouse and incredibly cinematic work that has lost none of its edge in the forty years since its release.
The song was held back for single release and was not included on either of the masterful American Sound Studio albums. It would hit stores in January, 1970 with the infectious “My Little Friend” as it B-Side. Like the greatest of Elvis Presley’s recordings, “Kentucky Rain” blurred the lines between rock, pop and country and it made a significant dent on each chart. It landed squarely in Billboard’s top twenty soon after its release and it became one of the most played songs of the year, although in hindsight it should have placed higher.
Elvis Presley loved “Kentucky Rain” and in 1970 he brought it to Vegas for some of his legendary stands at The International and The Hilton. Live recordings of the song show what it would have sounded like had Elvis produced the cut instead of Moman. The tempo is a bit faster and more space is left for Elvis’ unmatched TCB band to play with. The live versions of "Kentucky Rain" are perhaps even more powerful than the studio take, although they lose some of the ethereal quality of the original.



Elvis liked Eddie Rabbitt a lot and he recorded two more of the songwriter’s passionate and expert songs, the epic sounding "Inherit the Wind" and the rocking "Patch it Up". Both songs are masterworks in their own right, but neither matches the splendor of "Kentucky Rain".
The song not only sealed Eddie Rabbitt’s name as a top songwriter, but it also helped springboard his own solo career. Throughout the seventies and eighties, Rabbitt proved to be one of the great cross-over artists and the albums he recorded in the period were remarkably well-crafted and well-performed works. Eddie would hit pay-dirt ten years after Elvis first recorded one of his songs with another tune about the rain, and the chart-topping “I Love a Rainy Night” remains one of the coolest sounding and most resonate cross-over country songs ever recorded.



“Kentucky Rain” has been covered numerous times since Elvis’ version. Eddie Rabbitt himself would tackle the song a year after Elvis passed away on his terrific 1978 album Variations. His version is heartfelt, gripping and compelling. It is a splendid tribute to both Rabbitt’s ability as a singer in his own right, and Presley himself.
In the years since Elvis’ death, “Kentucky Rain” has appeared on dozen’s of best-of collections and box-sets. It became one of the most thrilling cuts on the near chart topping 2nd to None in the early part of the decade, and remains a favorite to many fans all over the world.
One of those fans is peerless Paul Westerberg, who began performing “Kentucky Rain” live around the time of 2nd to None’s release. Westerberg’s love for Elvis has been apparent since The Replacements paid tribute to the cover of G.I. Blues with their legendary Pleased to Meet Me LP twenty years ago, and his version of “Kentucky Rain” is a ragged triumph…sloppy, genuine, and fitting as Paul Westerberg stands along with Elvis as one of Rock’s great individuals.
Eddie Rabbitt and Elvis Presley would meet just once; backstage after a particularly frenzied Vegas stand in the early seventies. Rabbitt recalled that meeting an exhausted Elvis Presley was, “short and sweet but a pleasure nonetheless.” Eddie Rabbitt sadly followed Elvis Presley into the great unknown in the early summer of 1998. His legacy of great songwriting lives on though, with “Kentucky Rain” remaining one of his most devastating and powerful tunes…

***Quotes come from Writing for the King and A Life in Music.***

Adventureland (The Ballad of El Goodo)

Mike Connell can’t remember the first time he told his Lou Reed story. What’s even worse is that he can’t even remember at this point how much of it is bullshit. He saw Lou Reed once, he knows that but he’d be hard pressed to recall the exact circumstances. All he knows is that for the past ten years he’s been telling this story about jamming with Lou Reed one night, and for ten years the story has been landing him chicks. Lately though he’s been feeling like he’s wearing down, as he’s starting to realize that a lot of the dreams he had are becoming as false as that story about jamming with Lou Reed that night so many years ago. Perhaps it all stems from Em, the girl he works with at Adventureland that he has been sneaking out with behind his wife’s back for the past year or so. Em’s different from those other girls, she’s becoming more attached and it’s starting to scare Mike who is looking to become more and more dis-attached from the life he has made for himself.

Em, or Emily has her father calls her when he is pissed, has been running on empty since her mom died of cancer two years ago. She’s sleeping with a repairman from Adventureland whose both married and about ten years her senior. He jammed with Lou Reed though, and he’s cuter than most of the guys she knows from school so maybe it’s not all bad. Lately though, Em can’t concentrate and she can’t stop thinking about her mom, although she wouldn’t want any of her friends to know that. Her bitch of a stepmother isn’t helping matters either, and as of late all she wants to do is sit in her room and play her Big Star and Jesus and Mary Chain records. Part of her wants summer to be over so she can return to New York and college, but another part of her is just scared beyond all words…plus she’s met another guy named James at Adventureland that makes her feel things inside that she hasn’t felt since her mom died.

James Brennan doesn’t have any scientific proof of it, but he suspects that he might very well be the world’s biggest fuck up. He’s just managed to graduate college with a degree he’ll never really be able to use and, worse yet, he’s still a virgin. His European Trip graduation gift trip has fallen through as well, cause his dad has just got demoted at work, and now he’s stuck for the summer working at the local amusement park Adventureland. Things could be worse though as he’s got a bag of grass to last the summer, and he’s really getting a kick out of the Henry Miller book that he is so engrossed in. Even better are some of the friends he has made at the park like Connell, the repair guy who jammed with Lou Reed back in the day and especially Em, the coolest girl he has ever met. He suspects that Em is the kind of girl that Alex Chilton wrote “September Gurls” for, and he finds the song playing in his head every time he looks at her.



These are just three characters in Greg Mottola’s lovely, heartfelt and downright stunning Adventureland, the kind of American youth film that only comes along every decade or so. This is just Mottola’s third feature film, after the terrific Daytrippers and very winning Superbad, and with it he confirms himself as one of the major new voices in American cinema. Adventureland is as honest as a worn out groove on a vintage Velvet Underground album, and as exciting as finding a sealed copy of Big Star’s second LP in a record store’s discount bin.
Set in 1987 and mixing humor with real human emotion the way few films can or even dare to, Adventureland is among the most perfect American films of the decade. A daring and ambitious time capsule that lays to waste most films of late that have attempted to center on the frustrations and triumphs that go hand in hand with being young. Working from a pitch perfect script from his own pen, Mottola’s film is the kind of work that I dream about but one that rarely actually manifests itself. From the opening blast of The Replacement’s legendary “Bastards of Young” to the final breathtaking shot of Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart that instantly takes its place among the great closing moments in any film in recent memory, Adventureland doesn’t make a wrong turn. It’s warm, funny, touching and contains the kind of devastating emotional honesty that is becoming more and more of a rare commodity these days, in film and life.



Adventureland is a fully loaded production. Working with Mottola’s pitch perfect script is one of the best ensemble casts imaginable. Jesse Eisenberg delivers one of the great performances essaying awkward youth as James and Kristen Stewart is simply magical as Em, the perfect young love who feels like she is on the edge of an emotional breakdown at any moment. Watching Stewart I was reminded of Jennifer Jason Leigh’s turn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and I can’t think of a higher compliment than that. Extremely talented and undervalued Ryan Reynolds delivers a wise, knowing and undeniably sympathetic turn as Connell. The entire supporting cast is also incredible, with everyone managing to make even the smallest characters fully realized three-dimensional people.
The behind the scenes crew Mottola has assembled does extremely solid work as well. Anne McCabe’s editing keeps the film moving along at a brisk pace, but it manages to not be cut too tight to spoil the feeling of immobility so many of the characters are feeling. Kudos also to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s wonderful costume designer Melissa Toth, who does a fantastic job of capturing 1987 without turning it into the punch line so many other designers would. Adventureland is an extremely smart and well thought out film, and Mottola has chosen the perfect people to help him realize his unique and ambitious vision.



I was extremely moved by Greg Mottola’s Adventureland. It is one of the first films that I know of that really captures the time when I was a teenager. The eighties are an easy time to make fun of, Mottola’s film reminds us that some of us could already see the ridiculousness in much of it, but we knew there were some sublime little corners to gravitate towards as well. Adventureland travels to both and nails each with perfection and ease. This is the first film I have seen about the period where I can really say, I knew those kids…I was one of those kids.



Adventureland is being advertised as a straight comedy, and I have a feeling there might be some disappointed folks leaving theaters after seeing it. I also suspect that it might take a bit of time for this film to catch on, but trust me it is a classic. Adventureland is a really special film, and it’s the best film of its kind since Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused more than fifteen years ago.
Alex Chilton and Chris Bell wrote a song called "The Ballad of El Goodo" in 1972 for the peerless first Big Star album. The song has played in my head as images from Adventureland replay in my mind, with these lyrics being particularly resonate:

"There's people around who tell you that they know
And places where they send you, and it's easy to go.
They'll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row
But you know you don't have to, you can just say "no".

I've been built up and trusted, broke down and busted
But they'll get theirs and we will get ours if you can
Just-a hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on."


Thanks to Greg Mottola for making a film that dares to break away from an increasingly dull and compliant pack. Most of the films you will see this year will lie to you, Adventureland doesn't and for this reason among many others it should be celebrated.