A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
My record collection
[382] Frances Ha (DVD / LP)
After a couple of misses we finally get to the Noah Baumbach film I do rather love. I suspect that so much of it is down to the charm of Frances, or maybe the charm of the way Greta Gerwig plays Frances since Frances isn’t always charming. But Greta is the film, she’s in pretty much every scene so you can’t like the film if you don’t like Frances and I can understand that some people might not like her. But I do.
I first saw Frances Ha at the BFI in July 2013 and have now seen it twice since and my love of it hasn’t tailed off at all.
Dean and Britta have appearances in the film at a dinner party and also have an “additional music by” credit. That additional music is the Ann Buchanan Theme (from 13 Most Beautiful) which appears early on in the film, and Million Dollar Doll by Britta (although credited to Dean & Britta for the film and on the film’s soundtrack) which plays in the background of a bar scene.
The soundtrack album was originally released only as a pink vinyl promo so wasn’t easy to get hold of so I emailed Britta to ask if she had a digital copy of Million Dollar Doll - she sent me a copy - “Here it is. Let me know if you have trouble playing this since I bought it on iTunes” - which embarrassed me since… I probably could have done that!
I was intending it for my solo album, but they wanted it credited to D&B for the film score. We did it as background music in a bar scene in the film - with no vocals, so you probably won't even notice it. But the film is great! It was quite a last minute request to have the song on the sound track so it's kind of a rough mix. I still might put it on my solo "thing." Maybe give it a fresh mix.
Email from Britta (20th June 2013)
Of course it did get released on Britta’s Luck or Magic - and had a video made for it:
The soundtrack finally got a proper release in 2024, also on pink vinyl, and that’s the copy I bought via Rough Trade’s Discogs for a shocking amount of money!
The film does have a great soundtrack, and so the soundtrack LP is also rather great - as well as (Dean &) Britta’s Million Dollar Doll there’s Chrome Sitar from the hugely underrated T.Rex album Futuristic Dragon; an outtake, Blue Sway, from Paul McCartney’s excellent McCartney II (an album I sang the praises of on AHFoW a couple of years back); Hot Chocoloate’s Every 1’s a Winner.
It also has Modern Love by David Bowie - now I’ve always had problems with 80s Bowie (Let’s Dance and Tonight are albums I find very hard to love) but I’ve come around on Modern Love, and part of that coming around is thanks to its use in Frances Ha, which is so gloriously joyous.
My DVD is a very basic UK release with no extras apart from a trailer.
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 13/022
- Title: Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2013)
- Format: DVD
- Bought from Amazon Marketplace for £1.62
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/109
- Artist: Various artists
- Title: Music From The Motion Picture Frances Ha
- Notes: Pink vinyl reissue
- Format: LP
- Bought from Rough Trade Discogs for… too much!
Previously in my record collection: