TRACK #376:

Never Cry Devil by Willy DeVille

We’re keeping Title Track train chuggin’ along with a Title Track to 1989’s Night Visitor.

Now you may notice, however, that this song is not Night Visitor. That is because tonight’s Title Track is an Alternate Title Track, where the song was very much a True Title Track for most of the film’s inception and production (and hell, even in some Foreign market releases) but for some reason was stripped of its status by reckless executives.

Because dear readers, I ask, is Night Visitor a better title than Never Cry Devil? I should think not.

This thick slice of late 80’s Rock ‘N Roll cheesery comes from Willy DeVille, whom is perhaps best known being the leader of Mink DeVille, an early house band at New York’s famed CBGB.

Willy also earned himself an Academy Award nomination for writing and recording Storybook Love with Dire Straits’ Mark Knophler for the film The Princess Bride. Aces.

Here, Willy sets a mood while vaguely (very vaguely) singing about the things that might have something to do with the plot of this 1989 thriller about a boy who thinks he’s gonna see his sexy neighbor Shannon Tweed get buck, but just ends up seeing his fat History teacher ritualistically murdering her in a crazy Satan mask. It’s kinda wild.

But I can picture wilder. Much wilder.

Michael J. Pollard plays the muderer’s brother and (as always) just about steals the show. Elliot Gould showed for a few days to collect his checks and they somehow talked Shaft himself, Mr. Richard Roundtree, into playing the investigating detective.

None of it’s bad, per se, but it doesn’t quite amount to what you want from the premise.

However, it might just be more evidence for Mikey’s theorem that the quality of a movie’s Title Track is directly, and inversely, proportionate to how much that movie sucks.

Now, I’m not sure if that’s always true, particularly for the heavy hitters (Fright Night, Monster Squard, fuckin Ghostbusters for fuck’s sake) but it definitely seems to be the case here again at Track #375, cause this song’s delivering the goods. It’s Wily DeVille with Never Cry Devil.