Closing Track In Charli XCX’s New Film The Second Defined By Director [Exclusive]

Ever since I noticed the movie premiere in Park Metropolis, I needed to ask you this query, as a result of I used to be simply floored, so delighted by the ending. It actually made the entire thing come collectively for me, particularly the usage of The Verve’s “Bitter Candy Symphony.” I began punching the air after I began listening to these notes. What was the choice that led to that needle drop? Was there ever stress or fear of like, “Ought to we be utilizing a Charli track as an alternative?”

I am so glad you requested this query, as a result of one, I am actually grateful that the ending landed for you want that. It made me actually completely satisfied. However yeah, so okay, there’s a few actually … I am actually glad you requested about this. There’s a few causes that I feel “Bitter Candy Symphony” was the right ending to it. One, humorous sufficient, “Bitter Candy Symphony” has type of been … I imply, I’ve cherished that track for thus lengthy. I’ve cherished the music video for thus lengthy. The Walter Stern music video. It is an unbelievable video. Humorous sufficient, that video was one of many essential references I had for “360,” the music video, the place it is like somebody strolling with a horrible angle, you realize what I imply? Unbothered with the world round them. And truly I did dial loads into that. I’ve by no means really obtained to inform anyone that, however that was certainly one of our key references for “360.”

So it was one thing that I held at the back of my head as a little bit of ethos for the “Brat” angle, you realize what I imply? However then down the road once we had been enthusiastic about it once more, there’s another causes […] I really feel prefer it’s a video the place London is offered in a extremely cool method. And I’d all the time refer again to it after I was speaking to Sean about, “I like the best way London appears on this music video, that it appears type of a bit messy and dirty.” In order that was additionally one other reference for us there.

Then after I really got here to [“The Moment”] ending, I feel “Bitter Candy Symphony,” it is such a large, large monitor that it is clearly a cool and emotional track, however then it is had this expertise in life the place it is grow to be so large that it is moved by eras of being extraordinarily cool, to then being overplayed, to being cool once more. And it is type of skilled all these lives, the place it type of moved past being type of widespread in the identical method.

The opposite factor that I believed was very attention-grabbing is that for a really very long time, The Verve weren’t capable of make any cash off of that monitor by any means, as a result of it used this pattern from The Rolling Stones. And I believed this was such an attention-grabbing tie to the concept of the possession of artwork and who owns artwork, and it weirdly tied so thematically to our movie. So placing that on the finish there, I feel it type of summed up numerous the principle themes of our film. We had been capable of get rights to it as a result of I feel it was solely a few years in the past, they had been really capable of, once more, get rights to the monitor and be capable of get royalties off of it. Charli wrote a letter to Richard Ashcroft, and he was actually completely satisfied for us to make use of the track, which was actually cool.

Yeah, it is a tremendous emotional monitor, and it is also obtained this sort of curse of being so overplayed and so within the zeitgeist, but additionally outdoors of it. After which clearly that type of humorous relationship with possession, which is what we play with in our movie. Equally, once we go to A.G. [Cook]’s remix of “I Love It,” once more, that is the one different type of needle drop within the movie. However it’s once more, a track which has had the identical type of relationship with artistic possession. Charli wrote this track for Icona Pop. It was an Icona Pop track for a really very long time. Now it is type of Charli’s track once more, however it’s all a bit muddy and a bit wooly. So I believed it was actually cool to have these two tracks again to again which have had this humorous life and relationship with credit score, artistic possession, that type of factor. And in addition, we did suppose it was cool that there is by no means … all music within the movie is both rating, both A.G.’s rating or it is Charli practising a monitor, so it is barely heard diegetically. I believed it was type of cool to complete on a track that wasn’t hers. It was additionally one other type of like — what is the phrase I am in search of — a type of emancipation from “Brat.” [laughs]

“The Second” is in theaters now.