Thursday, July 28, 2011

That Sounds Familiar... "My Name is Lincoln"

Recently my posts have been quite lengthy and they have taken a while to write, so I thought that today I would talk about something that's small, but quite interesting. (Well, I find it interesting...)

Whenever you hear a piece of music in a movie trailer it is almost always not the music that will be in the movie. That is to say, trailer music is usually not the final film's soundtrack. Sometimes the music will be written especially for the trailer, but most times it is borrowed from another film's soundtrack.

There is one piece of music in particular that plays in many, many trailers. You've most likely heard it at one point or another without realizing it. The piece of music is called "My Name Is Lincoln" and it's from the film The Island (2005) directed by Michael Bay. The Island is not a very memorable film, but it's enduring legacy is this song. It was composed by Steve Jablonsky who does all of Bay's films. "My Name Is Lincoln" is, in my opinion, the most epic piece of score of modern times. This song is quite high on my list of favorite movie scores. It's on my workout playlist and when I listen to it I feel like I should go climb Mount Everest or something. Take a listen:


Doesn't the moment at 2:59 make your heart soar?

So, because this piece of music is SO epic, it's been used in a ton of trailers for epic movies. I like how the music feels a little different depending on what it's being played over. It's been used in dozens of trailers, but for now here are a few examples:

The most notable trailer it was used in is the extended trailer for Avatar (2010):


Then there's the trailer for Flyboys (2006). There's usually more than one piece of music in a trailer. It kicks in around 1:30.


I like how it's used in the trailer for Conviction (2010). It's a movie with an epic story, but it's not an action movie. Again, it kicks in towards the end at 1:41.


And finally, it's in the Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) trailer. It starts at 1:17.



Now that you know this piece of music you will recognize it in lots of trailers.

6 comments:

  1. The Island is very underrated in my opinion. So what if the clones thing have been done before? And maybe it's action scenes are a bit lengthy but hell, it's still a very entertaining flick with a good humanitarian message. "My name is Lincoln" fits the ending scene so well. The scene is all about the liberation of a people and the music matches that sentiment like hand in glove. It's a hopeful tune, epic and very human. Anyway, great post.

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  2. Love this song too. What are they saying/singing?

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  3. Love this song too. What are they saying/singing?

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  4. Also in the trailer for Will Smith's Seven Pounds. Love this track.

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  6. The song is really amazing!! One of my favorite!!!

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