The filmmaker’s 1986 movie about a high-school senior who skips school to spend the day in Chicago with his girlfriend and best buddy was the only one of Hughes’ movies not to have an official soundtrack released, but that’s likely to change later this year — three decades after the film first hit theaters.
According to Salon, Paramount and La-La Land Records have arranged a deal to produce an official soundtrack from the film that’s expected to hit shelves in September. The track list hasn’t been finalized at this point and nothing is confirmed, but fans of film probably have a good idea which songs they can expect to hear on the album.
While The Beatles’ version of Twist and Shout might be one of the most famous songs featured in the film, the movie also made memorable use of Yellow’s Oh Yeah, The English Beat’s March of the Swivel Heads (heard while Ferris races home near the end of the movie), Dream Academy’s The Edge of Forever, and The Flowerpot Men’s Beat City. And of course, Wayne Newton’s take on Danke Schoen is also a likely contender to be included on any official Ferris Bueller soundtrack.
As for why it’s taken this long to get a soundtrack to one of the highest-grossing films of 1986 and a bona fide cinematic classic, Hughes once explained his thoughts on the matter in an interview with Lollipop Magazine (via Nerdist):
The only official soundtrack that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ever had was for the mailing list. A&M was very angry with me over that; they begged me to put one out, but I thought “who’d want all of these songs?” I mean, would kids want “Dankeschöen” and “Oh Yeah” on the same record? They probably already had “Twist and Shout,” or their parents did, and to put all of those together with the more contemporary stuff, like the (English) Beat — I just didn’t think anybody would like it. But I did put together a seven-inch of the two songs I owned the rights to — “Big City” on one side, and … I forget, one of the other English bands on the soundtrack … and sent that to the mailing list. By ’86, ’87, it was costing us $30 a piece to mail out 100,000 packages. But it was a labor of love. I cared about my audience and I cared about these movies.
Along with the music from the film, the soundtrack is also expected to feature interviews in its liner notes with Hughes’ son, James Hughes, as well as music supervisor Tarquin Gotch, composer Ira Newborn, and editor Paul Hirsch.
