Witch Movies

Just a few thoughts on the portrayal of witches in movies.  I won't be including movies where the witch is only in a minor role, or movies which I haven't seen.


MACBETH:  (1611) William Shakespeare's tale of a man who assassinates a king in order to steal his throne, but eventually gets his comeuppance.  The Wyrd Sisters in this play and all of its various movie adaptations have established in the popular culture the image of the three old crones chanting around the cauldron.  Much of Shakespeare's inspiration was taken (allegedly) from local witch folklore of the time, including specific spells, which is one of the reasons why many people today believe that the play is cursed.  The witches in this play are portrayed as not exactly evil, but simply mischievous, and upon being told by the goddess Hecate that their deeds have caused serious harm throughout the kingdom, use their same mischievous tactics to resolve the issue.

HÄXAN:  (1922) This Swedish-Danish-made silent movie serial is a documentary about the witch trials of the middle ages.  Although some of its historical accuracy is questionable, it does take a very mature look at how dangerous fear and superstition can be, and how lucky we are to be living in a modern age of science and reason.  One criticism I have is that it leaves out the impact of Pagan religions and practices, as well as the cultural history of the Christian religions.  It's sort of a "they didn't know any better" look at how all seemingly supernatural things can be scientifically explained, ignoring the fact that beliefs and practices of the supernatural still exist today.

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS:  (1937) There have been countless variations on the old Snow White story since time immemorial (i.e. the Middle Ages), but the 1937 Disney animated version is probably the most culturally significant, not only for being the most iconic image of Snow White, but more importantly, for being the first ever feature-length animation.  The evil queen in the story is fairly true to the old folk tale, in that her motivation is more about the evils of jealousy and vanity than the evils of witchcraft.  I think one of the most vilifying things about her, at least to American audiences, is the fact that she is a royal authority figure, and audiences always want to root for the underdog.  In other words, she's not an evil witch, but rather an evil queen who simply uses witchcraft as one of the weapons in her arsenal.  This same motif can be seen in later Disney movies such as "Sleeping Beauty."  Various later incarnations of the Snow White story have kept this theme.

THE WIZARD OF OZ:  (1939) Silent movies about the Land of Oz started being made almost immediately following the invention of movies, and L. Frank Baum, the creator of the Oz books, had his own movie production company.  The most well-known version, however, was MGM's 1939 Technicolor version starring Judy Garland.  Besides winning its share of awards, establishing MGM's reputation as the company that makes lavish musicals, and becoming one of the most beloved children's classics of all time, this is the movie that cemented the image of Oz (including the image of the Wicked Witch of the West) into the popular culture.  Do I really need to explain the plot?  Okay, Dorothy gets swept up by a tornado to a strange land, and needs the Wizard's help to get home.  There.  One of the things I like about this movie is the way witches are portrayed as having the potential to use their powers for good or evil.  The 1985 sequel "Return to Oz" starring Fairuza Balk, and the 2013 prequel "Oz the Great and Powerful" starring James Franco, complete the trilogy by adapting other Oz stories, but tying them into the story elements and visual styles of the 1939 version.  All three movies are excellent.

I MARRIED A WITCH:  (1942) In this light-hearted romantic comedy, a witch played by Veronica Lake, who was burned at the stake has just returned to take revenge on the direct descendant of her accuser.  He tries to slip him a love potion with the intent of spurning him, but instead is given the love potion herself.  She breaks up his intended wedding, elopes with him (inexplicably, as he had been rejecting her up until this point), and finally tells him that she is a witch, proving her power by rigging an election for him.  The whole while, her father is attempting to ruin him, even briefly attempting to frame him for murder.  The jokes are oddly spaced, the plot bounces all over the place, and the pacing is strange... possibly due to the fact that director Rene Clair had a background in avant-garde filmmaking.  This movie's big contribution it was one of the bases for the TV series "Bewitched."  In this movie, the witches are portrayed as very much inhuman.  This is reinforced by the husband's reaction when he learns the truth -- first refusing to believe that witches exist, then worrying about what would happen if the secret ever got out.  Again, this is similar to "Bewitched."

THE BELL, THE BOOK AND THE CANDLE:  (1958) This one is a romantic comedy starring Jimmy Stewart.  A witch, played by Kim Novak casts a love spell on Jimmy Stewart purely to spite his fiancé, who is an old enemy, but in the process, finds herself falling in love for real.  There is also a subplot about Jack Lemon attempting to publish a book about modern witchcraft for the general public.  There are some cliché elements regarding the inhumanity of witches.  In the mythology of this movie, witches cannot fall in love without risking losing their powers.  One thing about the movie which I do find very accurate is that there is no one "official" version of witchcraft.  In this movie, witches have a very loose subculture of various occult practitioners (astrology, theosophy, herbology, etc.) all learning from one another.  A researcher claims to know all there is to know, quoting a lot of medieval folklore (such as witches float in water), but Jack Lemon quickly comments how he has it "all wrong."  To the movie's credit, it doesn't bother to exposit on what the "right" lore is.

BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS:  (1971) A Disney movie combining live action with animation about a real witch, a fake witch and some children who use magick to fight off the Nazis.  The witch in this story, played by Angela Lansbury, flies on a broom, but other than that, is a pretty good portrayal of a witch, in that she is an otherwise ordinary person, but is learning to use witchcraft through study and some trial and error.  She has a natural talent which allows her to work spells that wouldn't work for other people.  It's a good kids' movie, and how often do you get to use the words "Disney" and "Nazis" in the same sentence?

THE TROUBLE WITH MISS SWITCH:  (1980) A made-for-TV animated children's special about a substitute teacher who is secretly a witch.  In this, and it's 1982 sequel, "Miss Switch to the Rescue," follows the fairly common tradition of witches as otherworldly beings, as well as the wicked witch who threatens the good witches.  Miss Switch does have the pointed hat and broom, but fortunately, does not appear green, ugly or wart-covered.  Also, she has a very strict and proper style about her -- a huge departure from the medieval "debaucherous" concept of a witch.

HALLOWEEN III:  SEASON OF THE WITCH:  (1982) This movie confused a lot of people, because it was not a sequel to "Halloween" or "Halloween II," but later Halloween movies continued the Michael Myers saga from the first two movies.  It is also the only movie to deal with witchcraft.  (So let's just ignore the first half of the title, because everyone else does.)  The plot is about a modern-day Irish Druid who wants to sacrifice children (using deadly Halloween masks) to the Pagan gods on the night of Samhain.  Fortunately, this doesn't attempt to represent any established neo-Pagan sects, but rather an individual attempting to restore Halloween to its Pagan origins.  I applaud this movie for not trying to make up a mythology, but instead having some real facts about the origins of Halloween.  (Granted, there is still a great deal not known about the Druids of ancient times, and most of what we do know about them comes from outside sources, such as the Romans.)

THE WORST WITCH:  (1986) A low-budget and overly cliché made-for-TV children's story about a witch school.  Fairuza Balk (again) plays a very poor student who gets picked on, but in the end, defeats a group of wicked witches.  It's stupid, but it's fun.  So what's the real payoff?  Why is this movie so popular?  Two words:  Tim Curry!  I mean, let's face it.  Time Curry makes anything awesome.

THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK:  (1987) Three small-town women (Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer) discover they have natural powers, and use them to summon their ideal man, Jack Nicholson (as his absolute most Jack Nicholson-est).  After a series of misfortunes, the witches realize that Jack is the devil (or some sort of demon or evil sorcerer... it isn't really explained) and use their newfound powers to banish him.  This movie doesn't get into what exactly a "witch" is, aside from having powers, which gives it a very universal quality.  The only spell that is specifically explained is the use of a poppet, which is done accurately.

DRAGNET:  (1987) While not a movie about witchcraft per se, it does include Pagans.  Here, "Pagan" is an acronym for "People Against Normality And Goodness."  The movie is basically making fun of the stiffness of the original TV series, playing the hero (Dan Aykroyd) as the old-fashioned by-the-book traditionalist.  Still, in a realistic context, there are and always will be posers who consider themselves occult just for the excuse of being nonconformist.

ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK:  (1988) Anyone who grew up in the 80s knows Elvira from her Movie Macabre as well as her numerous TV appearances.  In this movie, Elvira plays "herself," discovering that she is the sole heir to a witches spellbook, and in the process, finds herself stuck in a small suburban town with exaggeratedly religious conservative people.  The movie is both an homage to classic horror and an excuse for a lot of tit jokes.  Elvira returned in 2001 for "Elvira's Haunted Hills," a parody of Roger Coreman's movie series on Edgar Allen Poe.  It's never made clear if this is a sequel, prequel or a completely unrelated story with the same character.

TEEN WITCH:  (1989) No, not the Wiccan instructional book by Silver Ravenwolf.  Teen Witch was a pathetic attempt to do a female version of the already popular 1985 movie "Teen Wolf."  It's the exact same story, except that instead of a werewolf winning the big basketball game, it's a witch winning over the hot guy... and there's rapping.  Aside from just being a really stupid movie, the portrayal of witches doesn't fall into the mythological or the modern categories.  She doesn't need to study or learn spells.  She just suddenly has godlike powers.

WARLOCK:  (1989) Another throwback to the medieval lore.  A witch-hunter from the middle ages returns to stop a warlock from finding a book which can unmake the universe.  The 1993 sequel "Warlock the Armageddon," focused on modern Druids.  Unlike "witch" movies, the Druids are a specific sect, so I put a little more pressure on them to be authentic.  In this story, the Druids are an order to prevent Satan from being unleashed onto the world, by keeping several sacred runestones safe.  Eh, close enough.

THE WITCHES:  (1990) This is a throwback to the fairy tale witch -- old, ugly and out to steal all the children.  Their evil plans are thwarted by a boy who has been turned into a mouse.  Many movie adaptations of Roald Dahl's books (Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach) are fun for all ages, but "The Witches" is clearly just intended to be a mindless children's story.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY:  (1991) This movie, and its 1993 sequel, "Addams Family Values," are based on the 1964-1966 TV series, which were in turn, based on a series of New Yorker cartoons.  Originally, the concept was to juxtapose classic horror characters with modern suburban society.  The TV series was groundbreaking for its time (probably unintentionally) by breaking all sit-com clichés, and instead showing a psychologically normal and healthy family, who just happen to appear macabre and ghoulish and practice the occult.  The subtext (and sometimes plain text) of the show was about accepting people's differences.  The movies seemed to be going more for nostalgia factor as well as an indictment of superficial upper-class conformists.  One of the things I love about this movie is the way that individualism and occultism are treated as common everyday things by the Addams, and if anyone doesn't like it, it's their problem.

HOCUS-POCUS:  (1993)  This is a return to the fairy-tale witch who is inhuman and captures children.  Three witches (Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker) are brought back to life on Halloween.  Despite the old tired gag of people from the past being confused by modern technology, the movie is fun.  One of the major witch clichés in this movie is that it feels the need to "explain" why witches are present in the modern world, in this case, having been killed in the 17th century, but with an old curse that can bring them back to life.  (At least "The Witches" explained present-day witches as simply not being apparent.)

THE CRAFT:  (1996) Three teenagers dabble in witchcraft, but their power increases tremendously when they are joined by a fourth "natural" witch, played by Robin Tunney.  The other three (played by Neve Campbell, Rachel True and guess who... Fairuza Balk) become corrupted with power, misuse their witchcraft, and learn a harsh lesson.  All-in-all, a very good story.  Where this movie really shines, however, is in it's accurate portrayal of modern witchcraft, using specifically Wiccan rituals, but never explicitly stating that this is intended as an accurate portrayal of Wicca (or even saying the word "Wicca" at any point in the movie).  This is probably my favorite witch movie.  I should also point out that "The Craft" was the inspiration for the 1998-2006 TV series "Charmed" (even using a song used in the movie as the opening credits theme).  While I absolutely love "Charmed," the portrayal of witches is much more in line with medieval mysticism and demonology.  Ironic that a TV series which portrays Wicca without calling itself "Wicca," now has the Halliwell sisters explicitly calling themselves "Wiccan," but except for a handfasting ritual in one episode, there is nothing Wicca-related in the entire series.  Their practices have much more in common with Rose Cross or Golden Dawn or variants or even Santeria.

CASPER MEETS WENDY:  (1998) Didn't see it.

PRACTICAL MAGIC:  (1998) A romantic comedy with a few horror elements.  Two sisters (Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman) look for love, exorcise an evil spirit, and seek to gain acceptance in the community.  I love this movie.  The portrayal of witches is a pretty accurate fam-trad, acknowledging the variety of witchcraft practices in the community.

HALLOWEENTOWN:  (1998) You know those annoyingly colorful and happy Halloween decorations you seen on the homes of families with very young children?  Imagine a whole movie like that.  The characters are cartoonish, and the entire mythology of witches, vampires, werewolves, fairies, etc. all seem to have been reverse-engineered from children's costumes.  Basically, an evil force has been taking over the town, and the only way to break the curse is for a group of children to light the magic jack-o-lantern.  It's pretty stupid.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT:  (1999) Even if you haven't seen it, you pretty much know that it's a lot of running with a shaky hand camera, following a "witch" who is really just a local urban legend.  It's trying to be another "Final Broadcast," but without the analysis to make it interesting.  The "witch" is never even seen.  It's basically a novelty that might have worked better as a short film than a feature.  The 2000 sequel, "Book of Shadows, Blair Witch II," is more like a real movie, but has its share of what-the-fuck-is-going-on problems.  One of the characters in this movie is explicitly Wiccan, and this is my main pet peeve with this movie.  The Wiccan character is a little TOO accurate.  She's the typical self-important, uneducated, ill-informed, ultra-liberal, anti-establishment, preachy, blame-the-Christians-for-everything, fluffy bunny.  Unlike "The Craft," however, the young and inexperienced Wiccan isn't corrected.  Instead, she's just one of the victims of whatever-is-going-on.  The movie puts forth the worst example of a Wiccan, but framed as if this were the BEST example.  It's unintentionally insulting.

HARRY POTTER MOVIES:  (2001-2011) This series is about a young boy (Daniel Radcliff) who finds out he is a wizard.  (I have to wonder, if he wears a pointed hat and rides a broom, why not just call him a "witch?")  He grows up at Hogwarts, facing the evil forces of Voldemort.  It's a cool adventure story with coming-of-age elements, and my only real criticism of the series is that it's a little too long and drawn out for my tastes.  There's nothing to say about accurate portrayals, because it doesn't pretend to be anything more than a fantasy.

BEWITCHED:  (2005) This movie starring Will Ferrel and Nicole Kidman (again?) is mostly a parody of the original 1964-1972 TV series starring Elizabeth Montgomery.  The original TV series cemented the term "warlock" for male witches in the public consciousness (much to my chagrin), and like "Teen Witch" portrayed witches as being almost omnipotent.  (This carried over into the 1977-1978 spinoff series "Tabitha.")  Still, this was a good portrayal of witchcraft in a positive light, and the movie adaptation had a strong nostalgia factor for the original series (despite Will Ferrel's scenery-chewing).

THE BROTHERS GRIMM:  (2005) The Brothers Grimm were cultural historians who compiled local legends of witches and monsters.  In this adaptation, they're a couple of con artists who pass themselves off as witch-hunters, but meet their match when they encounter a real witch, who embodies a combination of several Grimm tales.  The movie is an innovative update to the old legends.

CHRONICLES OF NARNIA:  THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE:  (2005) This is a difficult movie to classify.  The story of four children who walk through a wardrobe into a magical realm is intended as a metaphor for the story of Jesus Christ, in which the lion Aslan represents Jesus and the White Witch represents Satan.  As far as storytelling goes, the rules are pointlessly complicated and the character motives make little to no sense, at least, without the events in the story having a religious context.  Basically, I need the Jesus story in order to clarify the Narnia story.  As for the witch, she is exactly what one would expect from a Christian traditionalist interpretation of Satan -- corrupting people for its own sake, and then punishing them for it later, being both the instigator and the prosecutor.  I don't think this is necessarily intended to be an indictment of witchcraft as evil (or especially of "white" witchcraft), but rather using the familiar image of a witch as the villain of a children's story.  I don't think the writers even considered that witches exist anywhere outside of fairy tales.  As for the sequels, I haven't seen them.

STARDUST:  (2007) This movie has all the style and imagination you would expect from a Neil Gaiman story.  A young man finds love in a fallen star (Claire Danes) after entering a strange land.  In two overlapping subplots, a group of heirs to the throne fight amongst each other over a necklace in the star's possession, and a group of witches attempt to steal the star's heart to regain their youth.  The main witch in this movie, played by Michelle Pfeiffer (once again), changes between a young and beautiful sorceress and a wicked old crone, reminiscent of the evil queen from Snow White.

DARK SHADOWS:  (2012) Based on the 1966-1971 TV series, and adapted by Tim Burton, this is the story of a vampire played by Johnny Depp (because, as I said, it's a Tim Burton movie), who was cursed by a witch.  Unlike the original series (as well as the 1991 reboot), which took itself very seriously, the 2012 movie is played mostly for laughs.  Many critics have called this Tim Burton's worst movie, but I like it.  The witch in this movie is a jilted lover who learned the art of witchcraft purely for revenge and personal gain.  Johnny Depp also studies the occult in order to protect himself and his family.  Here, witchcraft is seen as being simply a tool which can be used for good or ill, which is very accurate.  The witch becomes inhuman, for the most part, but this is apparently only an after-effect of her immortality spell.

Those are about all the ones that I've been thinking about recently.  I'm sure there will be more to follow.

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History in the Form of Song Lyrics

HISTORY IN THE FORM OF SONG LYRICS:

Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state.  Then nearly fourteen billion years ago, expansion started.  Wait.  (Barenaked Ladies)
I'm comin' out, so you better get this party started.  (Pink)
Cloudy.  My thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy.  They have no borders, no boundaries.  (Simon & Garfunkel)
Starry starry night, paint your palette blue and gray.  (Don McLean)
And superstars get sucked into the supermassive.  (Muse)
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.  It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.  It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light years thick, but out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.  (Eric Idle)
Someday you will find me caught beneath the landslide, in a champagne supernova in the sky.  (Oasis)
All we are is dust in the wind.  Everything is dust in the wind.  (Kansas)
Here comes the sun.  Here comes the sun, and I say it's all right.  (The Beatles)
Ooh, hot lava.  Ooh, hot lava.  (The B-52s)
I've seen a bad moon rising.  (Creedence Clearwater)
Here comes the rain again, falling on my head like a tragedy.  (Eurythmics)
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.  (Johnny Nash)
I'm alive, and the world shines for me today.  I'm alive.  Suddenly, I am here today.  (Electric Light Orchestra)
I got bugs.  I got bugs in my room.  (Pearl Jam)
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly-polly fish heads.  Fish heads, fish heads.  Eat them up.  Yum.  (Barnes and Barnes)
She's got legs, and she knows how to use 'em.  (ZZ Top)
Open the door.  Get on the floor.  Everybody walk the dinosaur.  Open the door.  Get on the floor.  Everybody walk the dinosaur.  (Was Was Not)
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.  (REM)
Ice, ice, baby.  Ice, ice baby.  (Vanilla Ice)
You and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.  (The Bloodhound Gang)
Welcome to the jungle.  We got fun and games.  (Guns'N'Roses)
Hey, hey, we're the Monkees, and people say we monkey around.  (The Monkees)
So, stand in the place where you are.  (REM)
It's rainin' men.  Hallelujah, it's rainin' men.  (The Weather Girls)
Come on, baby, light my fire.  (The Doors)
If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.  (Peter Paul and Mary)
Flintstones.  Meet the Flintstones.  (Flintstones)
I'm a traveling man, who's made a lot of stops all over the world.  (Rick Nelson)
North to Alaska.  (Johnny Horton)
Old MacDonald had a farm, ee ie ee ie oh.  (Traditional)
What goes up must come down.  Spinnin' wheel got to go round.  (Blood, Sweat and Tears)
Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell, where the banshees live and they do live well.  Stonehenge!  Where a man's a man, and the children dance to the Pipes of Pan.  (Spinal Tap)
Walk like an Egyptian.  Walk like an Egyptian.  (The Bangles)
We're the Mesopotamians.  Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh.  (They Might Be Giants)
Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia, King Tut.  (Steve Martin)
You came in through the door like a Trojan Horse.  You came onto the floor like a Trojan Horse.  (Luv)
I am iron man.  (Black Sabbath)
The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh, said, oh, let my people go.  If not, I'll smite your first-born dead.  Oh, let my people go.  (Traditional)

Waiting for a sign to turn blood into wine.  The sweet taste in your mouth turned bitter in its glass.  Israel.  In Israel.  Israel.  In Israel.  (Siouxsie and the Banshees)
Smile on, little Buddha, smile on.  (Toad the Wet Sprocket)

Near to the east, in a part of ancient Greece, in an ancient land called Macedonia, was born a son to Phillip of Macedon, the legend, his name was Alexander.  (Iron Maiden)
Caesar never got them back, 'cause they killed his ass in the second act.  Brutus spoke, then Anthony said, 'My girlfriend's cat is smarter than me.  Friends, Romans, can't you see?  My girlfriend's cat is smarter than me.'  (Spin Doctors)
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ.  Who are you?  What have you sacrificed?  Jesus Christ.  Superstar.  Do you think you're what they say you are?  (Jesus Christ Superstar)
Sharia don't like it.  Rock the Casbah.  Rock the Casbah.  By order of the Prophet, we ban that boogie sound.  Degenerate the faithful with that crazy Casbah sound.  (The Clash)
Hell awaits behind Gaul's gates.  The Roman's stand only to fall.  They will die by his sword, the barbarian lord.  Attila hears victory call.  (Iced Earth)
Darkness imprisoning me.  All that I see, absolute horror.  (Metallica)
Myriad lights.  They said I'd be impressed.  Arabian nights, at your primitive best.  (Siouxsie and the Banshees)
I come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow.  Hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands to fight the hoards that sing and cry 'Valhalla, I am coming.'  (Led Zeppelin)
Christian sons with hearts of anger bring the book, the cross, the chancre.  Hallelujah, hallelujah.  Kiss the cross or they will burn ya.  Hallelujah, hallelujah.  They have come to rape and murder.  (Inkubus Sukkubus)
The Inquisition.  What a show.  The Inquisition.  Here we go.  I know you're wishin' that we'd go away, but the Inquisition's here, and it's here to stay.  (Mel Brooks)
Lion- Lionheart, defender of the faith.  Lion- Lionheart, protector of the state.  Lionheart.  (Saxon)
Genghis Khan, he could not keep all his kings supplied with sleep.  (Bob Dylan)
A place where nobody dared to go, the love that we came to know.  They call it Xanadu.  (Olivia Newton-John)
The bell tolls.  The black plague has struck.  Diseased eyes roll upwards, as if knowing which direction their souls will travel.  (The Animals)
Take a look.  It's in a book.  A reading rainbow.  (Reading Rainbow Theme)
A whole new world.  A new fantastic point of view.  No one to tell us no, or where to go, or say we're only dreaming.  (Aladdin)
From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.  (Marines)
I'm Henry the Eighth, I am.  Henry the Eight, I am, I am.  (Herman's Hermits)
Well, to be or not to be?  To be or not to be?  Am gonna have you for me?
I call on the resting soul of Galileo, king of night-vision, king of insight.  (Indigo Girls)
Living in America.  I live in America.  (James Brown)
We're not gonna take it.  No, we ain't gonna take it.  We're not gonna take it anymore.  (Twisted Sister)
We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin'.  There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.  We fired once more, and they begin to runnin' down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.  (Johnny Horton)
Fifteen men on a dead man's chest.  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.  (Traditional)
My, my, at Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender.  (Abba)
I don't need your civil war.  It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.  (Guns'N'Roses)
It's such a change for us to live so independently.  Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully.  Just look about.  You owe it to yourself to check it out.  Can't you feel a brand new day?  Can't you feel a brand new day?  (The Wiz)
I've been workin' on the railroad all the live-long day.  (Traditional)
Then from dawn till setting sun, he practiced with that deadly gun, and hour on hour I watched in awe.  No human being could match the draw of Ringo.  (Lorne Greene)
In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines, we've often been told to keep up with the times.  For our skills are not needed.  They've streamlined the job, and with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed.  (Dropkick Murphys)
We gonna rock down to electric avenue, and then we'll take you higher.  (Eddie Grant)
Here in my car, I feel safest of all.  I can lock all my doors.  It's the only way to live, in cars.  (Gary Numan)
I believe I can fly.  I believe I can touch the sky.  (R. Kelly)
Hooray for Hollywood!  That screwy ballyhooey Hollywood.  (Doris Day)
She blinded me with science.  She blinded me with science.  (Thomas Dolby)
War, huh, good god, y'all!  What is it good for?  Absolutely nothin'.  (Edwin Starr)
We've been spending most our lives living in a gangster's paradise.  (Coolio)
I ain't got no money, but I sure got a whole lotta love.  (Bob Seger)
It's springtime for Hitler and Germany.  Winter for Poland and France.  (Mel Brooks)
Atomic, oh atomic.  (Blondie)
Back in the US- back in the US- back in the USSR.  (The Beatles)
Living in the plastic age.  Plastic age.  (The Buggles)
Video killed the radio star.  Video killed the radio star.  (The Buggles)
Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land, Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion, Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania, Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson, Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex, J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say!  (Billy Joel)
And it's one, two, three, what are we fightin' for?  Don't ask me.  I don't give a damn.  Next stop is Vietnam.  (Country Joe and the Fish)
By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong.  (Joni Mitchell)
Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars.  Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.  (Frank Sinatra)
Don't turn around, uh-oh.  Der Kommissar's in town, uh-oh.  (After the Fire)
I want my... I want my... I want my MTV.  (Dire Straits)
Tear down the wall!  Tear down the wall!  (Pink Floyd)
What ya wanna do?  Wanna be hackers?  Code-crackers?  Slackers?  Wastin' time with all the chat room yackers?  Nine-to-five, chillin' at Hewlett-Packard?  (Weird Al Yankovic)
It's early fall.  There's a cloud in the New York skyline.  Innocence dragged across a yellow line.  (U2)
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.  Now, it looks as though they're here to stay.  Oh, I believe in yesterday.  (The Beatles)
Right now, hey, it's your tomorrow.  Right now, come on, it's everything.  Right now, catch a magic moment, do it, right here and now.  (Van Halen)
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow.  You're only a day away.  (Annie)
Things are goin' great, and it's only gettin' better.  I'm doin' all right, and gettin' good grades.  The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.  I gotta wear shades.  (Timbuk 3)
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.  Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.  (Styx)
Star Trekkin' across the universe, on the Starship Enterprise under Captain Kirk.  (The Firm)
We're hoppin' star to star through the galaxy.  We're flyin' high.  Let the world pass us by from here to eternity.  To eternity.  (Brian Setzer Orchestra)
Black hole sun, won't you come and wash away the rain.  Black hole sun, black hole sun, won't you come.  (Soundgarden)
This is the end, my only friend, the end.  (The Doors)
Let's do the time warp again!  (Richard O'Brien)
You go back, Jack, do it again.  Wheel's goin' round and round.  You go back, Jack, do it again.  (Steely Dan)
And it all started with a big bang.  (Barenaked Ladies)