Songs in the Key of Cinema: The Magic in “The Moon Song” Heard in “Her”

Songs in the Key of Cinema is a bi-weekly look at the use of songs in film and how that music fits within the context of the film as a whole and a place where we’ll cover the moments in cinema that were music to our eyes and ears. 

The number of films that are as comforting as bedtime stories are, for me, few and far between, but among the most lovely of those is Spike Jonze’s first solo effort Her. It makes sense, then, that Karen O, of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, would compose a lullaby for a film of such sweet sincerity, authenticity, and sensitivity. The track warmly and gently solidifies the momentary and transcendent experience of being in love and feeling comfort and safety with the one you adore. More than that, it quietly explores the transitory experience of intangible love, critical to understanding the realization of the relationship between the two main characters. The song, like certain moments in the film, is pure magic.

The Song

The Academy Award-nominated song was written by both Karen O and director/writer Spike Jonze, the culmination of ten years. Recorded in the former’s apartment with the sound of a car passing by included, the metropolitan atmosphere pervades the stripped down demo, heard at the end credits of the film. The songstress says that the song “was written and recorded in the most humble of circumstances; at [her] dining room table, a few paces from the couch [she] read the script for Her for the first time”.  There are three versions of the track, available on iTunes as an EP: the version from the film sung by Scarlett Johansson and Joaquin Phoenix, the demo version, and a studio version recorded by Karen O and Vampire Weekend front man Ezra Koenig. The first two renditions of “The Moon Song” are particularly exemplary of the song’s power: intimate, touching, and soothing. (Truth be told, Koenig’s voice doesn’t work that well with O’s, as his register is a bit too low to be harmonious.)

The Scene

Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix, still sporting those hipster-ish pants that seem to go up to his arm pits) takes his girlfriend Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) on a surprise trip to a snowy log cabin up in some anonymous mountainous forest. While there, Theodore brings out his ukulele and, nearly nestled in bed with Samantha, writes a lullaby with her called “The Moon Song”. They are there, together, alone. At this point, there is nothing more comforting than the presence of one another as they articulate their love for one another, Theodore with his ukulele and Samantha with her words. The two sing together, epitomizing their harmonious and unconventional existence.

The Analysis

In such a gentle and tender song, the quiet impact of “The Moon Song” is, in a way, mildly astonishing. Seemingly each lyric touches upon the same themes explored in the film, but the song as a whole works cohesively and beautifully of its own accord.

What I failed to mention earlier is that Samantha is a sentient operating system. At this point, the film is well known enough that such information is inessential, but Samantha’s very being, in all of its intangible being, is often what makes the song work. If understood from her perspective, “The Moon Song” is a promise to Theodore of safety and warmth.

I’m lying on the moon

My dear, I’ll be there soon

It’s a quiet and starry place

Time’s we’re swallowed up

In space we’re here a million miles away

Samantha does not exist in a physical form, but neither does love. The affectionate authenticity of the song, and of the film itself, is that it manages to communicate and portray ideas and feelings that would otherwise be incommunicable. For Samantha and Theodore, the physical does not nearly matter as much as the emotional intimacy that both have been able to attain with one another. As Dennis Lim puts it in his essay regarding Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine, Her works as cinema of lucidity. Much of what he says about the Korean drama I would apply to Spike Jonze’s film, one filled with “visceral emotions and abstract notions” and “a look at the particularities of human nature and experience that account for the existence”. Her has the power to “depict the invisible in what is foremost a visual medium”. With Love being the abstract and mysterious concept that it is, the comfortable tone the song takes lulls one to a state of wonder and, perhaps, vulnerability.

There’s things I wish I knew

There’s no thing I’d keep from you

It’s a dark and shiny place

But with you my dear

I’m safe and we’re a million miles away

Although the film waltzes around the subject of human transcendence and the transcendence of being (illustrated by bringing Alan Watts back from the dead, so to speak), the most transcendent thing about the film, and life in general, is connection. Regardless of what kind it is, emotional, intellectual, or physical, connection with another transports one to an entirely different realm. There’s an impressive amount of trust between Theodore and Samantha, not necessarily in its complete transparency, but the way that it mirrors any other relationship. The two are as real as a couple as anyone else, indicated by Chris Pratt’s shrug and enthusiastic “Cool!” when asking about setting up a double date. Samantha and Theodore want to know more about one another and more about the world. As their relationship evolves through the film, they get to a point where there is nothing they would keep from one another.

We’re lying on the moon

It’s a perfect afternoon

Your shadow follows me all day

Making sure that I’m

Okay and we’re a million miles away

In so few words, the song is able to portray the momentary and transitory nature of love and relationships. Even if a love lasts a lifetime, it is, in a sense, all relative. In its best moments, Love can feel like it only lasted a second, and for others it may feel like a heavenly eternity. The important part to glean is that in the film, in the moment Samantha and Theodore are singing the song, they are in love. Theodore’s college friend Amy (Amy Adams), whose own relationship has become turbulent, tells him her new carpe diem-like philosophy in one scene in the film: “We are only here briefly, and in this moment I want to allow myself joy.”

Conclusion

Karen O’s “The Moon Song” is as vibrant as the film it comes from. Johansson’s voice cracks a little in certain notes, and that seems to add to the sincerity of the lullaby. The very simplicity of the song is cleverly juxtaposed against the lyrical complexity, complementing the film’s subject matter. As the song lulls one into a sense of security, it becomes pure magic to realize how invested one has become in the unconventional romance between Theodore and Samantha. They are together and yet “a million miles away”.