B-Sides: Spies Like Paul McCartney, Dan Aykroyd, and Chevy Chase
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With so much talk of leaked government secrets and spying, Spies Like Us seems overdue for the B-Sides treatment. With Paul McCartney singing the theme song to a Dan Aykroyd/Chevy Chase comedy, this is probably more of an A-Side than a B-Side.
John Landis’ 1985 Cold War buddy comedy Spies Like Us starred Aykroyd and Chase as bumbling intelligence agents sent to the Soviet Union on a spy mission that actually turns out to be a setup for a right-wing military industrial complex conspiracy to start World War III. In retrospect, it’s kind of funny to realize the objectives of the villains in a nearly 30-year-old comedy aren’t all that dissimilar to the goal of the bad guys in White House Down. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Paul McCartney wrote and performed the movie’s title song of the same name. His last Top 10 hit in the US, “Spies Like Us” climbed all the way up to #7 on the singles chart. Today the song is mostly forgotten and, from what I gather from web comments, is not particularly well liked amongst McCartney’s fans. Not too surprising to hear that seeing as how the song is very simplistic and the lyrics don’t make a whole lot of sense. It is, however, quite catchy. Don’t be shocked if it gets stuck in your head.
Aykroyd and Chase even appear in the official music video that’s comprised mostly of clips from the motion picture and lots of mugging for the camera.
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Categorized:B-Sides
