Haunted Halloween Harmony: Steven Spielberg’s JAWS soundtrack by John Williams

October 9, 7:13 PMSoundtracks ExaminerMark Morton

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image courtesy of MCA Records

Today’s entry discusses a film that one wouldn’t really associate with horror, even though it scared the crap out of everybody. Ever since its release in 1975, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws has kept beachgoers wary of setting foot in the ocean, caused an unnecessary witch-hunt on the shark populace among fishermen, and yielded a musical theme that penetrates the core of the public psyche.

Back before Steven Spielberg grew a conscience, he was a fearless director, letting the movies do the talking - allowing them to unfold as nature would allow them, and he didn’t worry about knocking off a few kids in the process. (Seriously, how much more awesome would Jurassic Park had been if one of the kids had been shredded by the velociraptors?)

Jaws benefited from an impetuous director, willing to practically kill himself (and his cast & crew) to make a visual statement, a script that, although heavily rewritten even as the film was in production, read like classic literature (Spielberg allegedly had wanted the film to be like a modern Moby Dick).

It was the second collaboration between composer John Williams and Spielberg (following 1974’s The Sugarland Express), the first movie in film history to gross over $100 million, and the score earned Williams an Academy Award. Jaws singlehandedly launched John Williams as a tidal force in film music composition. It was lightning in a bottle, a perfect storm of timing, simplicity, and primal power.

Before Jaws, Williams was known for tangoing between being a television and film composer (he’d done work on the series’ Lost In Space, The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, Kraft Suspense Theater, a TV version of Heidi, and many other projects), until he won an Oscar in 1971 for scoring the film version of the musical Fiddler on the Roof.

Then, in the mid 70s, he launched to superstardom with a little flick called Jaws, and seemed to only return to television work as favors (i.e. Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories) or for relative musical importance (i.e. the 1984, 1988, 1996, and 2002 Olympic Games). He has also been lauded as the man with the second most Academy Award nominations (behind Walt Disney)

Since its release, the Jaws theme (aka “Main Title”) has become a worldwide, pop culture phenomenon. Its primeval effortlessness (not to mention its ease of hum-ability) makes it one of the most easily recognized pieces of music in film history, rivaled probably only by Williams’ own Star Wars fanfare. It was so popular, it was even received as a 45RPM vinyl single!

More props should also go to Jaws, because if you listen very, very closely to the score, Williams incorporated subtle elements of it into the first Star Wars soundtrack. Ever since then, and this is not to discount the man’s legendary compositional ability, nearly every score released by Williams seems to borrow in style (if not in tone or color) from previous Williams works.

In a Spring 1997 article in the academic journal Popular Music and Society, Timothy E. Scheurer even went so far as to claim that “instead of Schoenberg [Williams] quotes Stravinsky for the horror, and instead of Wagner/Max Steiner or Komgold he quotes Debussy for the seafaring ideas. The Great White's music is a page ripped right out of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, echoing especially the vigorous polyrhythms of the ballet's opening, ‘The Adoration of the Earth.’”

As with any genre of music, connections, whether intentional or not, can be made from any artist’s work to any number of previous releases, based on one’s familiarity with it, so criticisms like Scheurer’s should be taken with a grain of salt.

Currently there are three versions of the Jaws soundtrack in circulation from which to choose – there is the 35-minute, 12-track “original recipe” Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack recording from 1975, the 20-track “bold ‘n’ spicy” expanded Anniversary Collector’s Edition released in 2000, and the 25-track “extra crispy” re-recorded Original Motion Picture Score from Varese Sarabande, spearheaded by Joel McNeely and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and also released in 2000. There are pluses and minuses for all three editions, but purists seem more than satisfied with the two Williams-helmed versions, moreso with the latter.

The “Main Title” is the stuff of legends – with the ominous bass slowly rolling, like a great beast awakening; the tempo speeds up as the creature bolts into a charge, the tuba, horn, and vast string accompaniment join in a loud, panicked drive, and your heart skips a beat as the volume drops out, with a faint ethereal echo of the bass and piano flowing into the distance.

In the documentary, The Making of Jaws that was included with the 30th Anniversary Edition DVD of Jaws, Williams explained the motif:

“The idea of characterizing of the shark musically, these low, thumping ostinato notes on the bass were the result of a very simple idea that I had that the shark should be represented by something in sound or music; probably music, because there is no sound underwater, we thought. Today you might do it with sound effects, but I thought maybe a driving thing on the bottom of the orchestra might indicate the mindless attack of the shark, it’s all instinct. There’s no intelligence behind it, it’s an unstoppable bum-bum, bum-bum...this thing comes at you, and you can’t fight it off without destroying it, because of this relentless drive that it has.

“One could alter the speed of this ostinato…any kind of alteration of speed to very slow, very fast, very soft, very loud. All these things could manipulate the moment to illustrate that the shark was at the highest pitch of frenzy or something lower. This simple dramatic device seemed to be what we needed.”

In the same documentary, Spielberg admitted that he wasn’t convinced at first.

“When he finally played the music on the piano for me, he played the main theme for me. I expected to hear something weird and melodic, kind of tonal but eerie, of another world – almost like outer space, but inside inner space, under the water. And what he played me instead with two fingers on the lower keys was ‘dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun,’ and at first I began to laugh. He had a great sense of humor; I thought it was putting me on.

“And he said, ‘no, that’s the theme to Jaws!’ And I said, ‘play it again,’ and he played it again, and he played it again, and it suddenly seemed right. But when I first heard it, it seemed wrong; because it seemed too simple.”

He later confessed, “I think the score was clearly responsible for half of the success of that movie.”

On the Anniversary Collector’s Edition, “Main Title” is merged with “Chrissie’s Death” and entitled “Main Title and First Victim.” “Chrissie’s Death” is a gruesome little ditty, rippling with harp swells that pull and rip, evoking an unpredictable and uncontrollable rage, manic xylophone action, and a whirl of quick bites denying you the opportunity to catch a breath. It is equally, if not more, terrifying to hear as the iconic “Main Title” itself.

“Ben Gardner’s Boat” invokes the same jolting chills as the shower scene in Psycho. The fright is actually mildly funny, because, on the Anniversary Collector's Edition, it is immediately followed by “Montage,” (a condensed version of “Promenade” from the original release). "Mondage" is a cheery trumpet-driven theme that accentuates the carefree attitude of day-tripping beach goers, who are blissfully unaware there is any danger at all. It is a fun ‘traipsing along the boardwalk on a sunny day’ kind of track.

“Out to Sea” is probably among the most colorful cuts on the soundtrack, possessing all the charm and determination of fishermen, almost recalling a sea shanty style meshed with a classic Irish jig that makes you want to “whistle while you work.” In its mere 3 minutes (2 ½ on the original release), you become awash in the mythology of the free-spirited life of fishermen as the lead characters prepare to head out to track down the shark.

These themes probably were inspired by an early conversation between Spielberg and Williams. In the documentary, Spielberg admitted, “When John first saw the movie; he called me up and said, ‘this is like a pirate movie.’ He said, ‘I think we need pirate music for this, because this is primal, but it’s also fun and entertaining.’”

Probably the tensest moment on Jaws comes in “Man Against Beast,” where the pomp of life at sea escalates into a hybrid of adrenaline-pumping action and the looming fear of death. It’s a tug-of-war of sound, with dramatic tempo shifts and selective instrumentation that really drive home the visual memory of the experience.

The “End Titles” is one of the most charming moments in the score, because offers a return to fragile safety, rhythmically resembling the ebb and flow of the tide, as the surviving protagonists make their way to shore after finally destroying the shark.

On the Varese Sarabande re-recordings, some of the instrumentation sounds fine, like the piano and the woodwinds. But the strings come across at a higher timber, almost making them sound synthetic. And McNeely took some liberties with the tempo, which make certain moments, like “The First Victim” sound less like a combination of mystery and horror and more just pure, gushing horror.

Also, the entire horn section has a strange echo effect on it, which gives the impression of a “live recording”. The constant jabs by the horns are so disturbing; they make you feel like you are being physically assaulted.

And the tuning of certain instruments add a foreignness to certain scenes, like “The Alimentary Canal,” which sounds like more like a cue from a late 1970s James Bond film or an early 80s Harry Manfredini flick than Jaws – it causes a complete disconnect in memory that you sometimes find yourself scratching your head, questioning where in the movie that music appeared.

That said, many McNeely’s clinical amendments to the score really help to draw out and expose the influence Bernard Herrmann had on Williams. In addition, the re-recordings also featured several pieces of music that were never available on either previous release, which begs the question of yet another, more expansive edition. So who knows if we will ever see a complete score for Jaws surface in the future?

To close on a high note, we’ll draw up the liner notes from the original soundtrack release, where Spielberg is quoted as saying, “[John Williams] has accomplished on Jaws what Korngold did for 'The Sea Hawk' and Bernard Herrmann for 'Psycho.' Simply, he has made our movie more adventurous, gripping and phobic than I ever thought possible.”