Beating the traffic

I started listening to movie soundtrack in the 1980s. I really should do it more.

Orchestral music designed to conjure emotion at point-blank and deliver excitement on the head of a pin was much more accessible to me than classical tosh.

So I started looking at who was writing the soundtracks.

And I felt at the time as though James Horner wrote every single one of them.

His was the name that always came back.

It won't hurt that he scored Star Trek II and III, Cocoon and Commando (although it didn't fill me with joy today when I saw on Wikipedia that the Star Trek II director couldn't afford him by the time Star Trek VI came around). And I am surprised that having written that Titanic nonsense that he was only worth £15 million. But that's Hollywood. Actors rule.

I didn't realise he'd done the score to The Mask of Zorro, but I could hum it for you. (I really wanted to spell hum with two emms there -  what's happening to me?)

Horner just 'died himself' in a plane crash at the age of 61.

He joined a happy long list of 2 seater-plane pilots. 

It's a cliche. In his case a recurring theme.

I say "died himself" because there is no suggestion of suicide but he did it to himself.

I read these small plane crashes always with a "Yep..what did you expect?". 

Not everyone is Harrison Ford. 

It takes Indiana Jones to survive them.

So you can tell everybody you're thinking about his loved ones

You can tell everybody your thoughts are with his family.

You can reel off as many of those lies as make you feel better.

They are cliches too. I don't know if he has loved ones. I don't know if he has family.

For me my thoughts are with my discovery of him. 

And how his profession enhanced our lives.

61 - one score and ten left in him unsung. 

And for what?