The Durango 95, of course, was the stolen automobile of choice of A Clockwork Orange’s droogs. It is also the name of at least one real-life band (and the title of a Ramones instrumental). And of course, there’s The Droogs, an LA-based ’60s garage-influenced band that released several albums in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. Eighties hitmakers Heaven 17 (remember them..?) appropriated their name from the sales chart at the music boutique that head droog Alex frequents (The Sharks and The Humpers are real bands that may have also borrowed their names from the same Top 10 List). And Echo And The Bunnymen’s early albums were on Korova, the name of the milk bar inhabited by Alex and his droogy pals. And let’s not forget British dance act Moloko, named after the droogs’ favorite beverage. These are just a few of the musical entities that have nicked their handles from either Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel or Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 Warner Bros. film adaptation… In fact, Burgess in his own essay about the novel “A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music” accounts that rock bands with the name “Clockwork Orange” sprang up in New York and LA in the mid-60s: “These juveniles were primarily intrigued by the language of the book, which became a genuine teenage argot, and they liked the title. They did not realise that it was an old Cockney expression used to describe anything queer, not necessarily sexually so, and they hit on the secondary meaning of an organic entity, full of juice and sweetness and agreeable odour, being turned into an automaton.”

Musicians from Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham to R&B singer Usher have borrowed the droog costume for onstage or videos. And let us not forget Norway’s Turbonegro, Rob Zombie, and Faith No More’s Mike Patton, other members of the legion that have donned droog drag at one point or another. David Bowie sings to “a droogy” is his song “Suffragette City” and you can list German punks Die Toten Hosen, SoCal hardcore band TSOL, Henry Rollins, and U2 among those that have derived inspiration (or swiped imagery) from the dystopian classic.

The Rolling Stones approached Burgess in 1965 about acquiring the rights and producing a movie adaptation of the novel starring themselves. But given the “ultra-violence” and graphic sexuality of novel, any faithful film representation would have not had a theatrical outlet in the yet-to-be-liberated mid-60s. Things would change radically just a few years later when Kubrick’s film was released in the early seventies (albeit with an “X” rating).

The musical connections to A Clockwork Orange don’t just work in one direction — It’s not just musicians being influenced by the film. In addition to the symphony-heavy soundtrack that’s due to droog Alex’s love of Beethoven, director Kubrick peppered the film with real musical references such as the inclusion of the soundtrack LP of 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush, and Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother as dressing on the set during record store scene. (Incidently, most of the soundtrack music was performed on early synthesizers by electronic music pioneer Walter [later Wendy] Carlos and “March from A Clockwork Orange” is reportedly the first recorded song featuring the use of vocoder on vocals.) And most interesting, the infamous “Singing In The Rain” performed by Alex as he indulges in “a bit of horrorshow” was entirely the improvisation of actor Malcolm McDowell and does not appear in the novel.

Reportedly, Stanley Kubrick asked Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters if he could use elements of the “Atom Heart Mother” suite in the soundtrack; Waters rejected the request. Later, Waters asked Kubrick if he could borrow sounds from 2001: A Space Odyssey – a request that Kubrick turned down.

ACO is one of only two movies rated X on its original release that was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award (the other was Midnight Cowboy [1969]). It’s still one hell of a “fun” ride that continues to shock and awe more than 30 years after its release. Take a spin, won’t you?

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Music, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.