Song Of The Day 1/18/2016: Tina Charles – “I Love to Love”
River was created by Abi Morgan, who wrote the screenplay for the devastating movie Shame, which starred Michael Fassbender as an unstoppable sex addict, and not in a good way. Keeping in Morgan's tradition of male leads with serious psychological imbalances, Stellan Skarsgård plays protagonist cop John River, a Swedish expat in London who's trying to solve the murder of his partner, with whom he still communicates via ghostly visitations. This is all revealed in the first 15 minutes. Beyond that you'll get nothing from me. No one plays masculine, Scandinavian inner torture like Skarsgård. He looks like he draws equal measures pain and comfort from the voices in his head, which I certainly understand. Hold on, let me ask Herbert Hoover. Okay. He confirms. Also, he asked me to tell you to please stop blaming him for the Great Depression. Before he could tell me who was really responsible he was tackled to the ground by Genghis Khan. Animals. I'm definitely going to keep both of their security deposits.
ANYWAY, Tina Charles' "I Love to Love," a very enchanting piece of disco meringue that hit #1 on the UK charts in '76 (but curiously struck out in the States), plays a major role in the supernatural subplot of River. It's one of the musical guilty pleasures of murder victim Stevie, played by Nicola Walker. Thinking back on the course of the series it may say even more than I think it does, which is really, really some brilliant music supervision at work here. And it's freakin' adorable. "I Love to Love" was produced by '70s studio superstar Biddu, also responsible for Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting," another piece well-suited to psychological torment for entirely different reasons.CORRECTION: The original post incorrectly identified the Kevin Spacey Netflix vehicle as House of Games, which is actually a David Mamet film. The correct title is House of Cards. The editor regrets the error more than you can believe.