"Moulin Rouge" - Various Artists

Soundtrack Album

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Full Track Listing:

  • Nature Boy – David Bowie (3:25)
  • Lady Marmalade – Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya, Pink (4:24)
  • Because we Can – Fatboy Slim (3:27)
  • Sparkling Diamonds – Nicole Kidman (2:52)
  • Rhythm of the Night – Valeria (3:49)
  • Your Song – Ewan McGregor / Allessandro Safina (3:38)
  • Children of the Revolution – Bono, Gavin Friday, Maurice Seezer (2:59)
  • One Day I’ll Fly Away – Nicole Kidman (3:18)
  • Diamond Dogs – Beck (4:34)
  • Elephant Love Medley – Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Jamie Allen (4:13)
  • Come What May – Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor (4:48)
  • El Tango de Roxanne – Ewan McGregor, Jose Feliciano, Jacek Koman (4:43)
  • Complainte de la Butte – Rufus Wainwright (3:07)
  • Hindi Sad Diamonds – Nicole Kidman, John Leguizamo, Alka Yagnik (3:28)
  • Nature Boy (Massive Attack Mix) – David Bowie (4:08)
    Extra Tracks:
  • Lady Marmalade (Thunderpuss Radio Mix) – Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya, Pink

Background Information

“Moulin Rouge” was a 2001 movie starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, which was directed by Baz Luhrmann. The movie is a musical, which features the characters of the film singing during large portions of the film. The movie also features several original pieces of music recorded for the film but artists who do not appear in the film. Bono and Gavin Friday fall into the later category as they contribute a cover of the T-Rex song “Children of the Revolution” for use in the film, but do not appear in the film itself. Friday had previously contributed to the Luhrmann soundtrack to his film “Romeo + Juliet”. It was Lurhmann who specifically asked for Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer to perform the song “Children of the Revolution”. The song is used as a theme for the Bohemians in the movie.

The song was recorded in Gavin Friday’s HORSE studios just before Bono left to join U2 in Miami for the start of the Elevation tour. Gavin discusses his love of T-Rex: “take me back to ’72″…”The Slider”, “Rex Mortuus Est”, “Life’s a Gas”, “King of Trash”. Over the years myself and Maurice have tipped our hat to Bolan many a time. The music of T Rex will always be close to my heart, it’s a ‘you never forget your first kiss’ type of thing.” He also discussed how he and Bono worked on the track: ““We are one but not the same… Bono took the role of Bolan and I took on the role of Flo & Eddie (backing singers on the original) at the request of the director. The recordings were very free form, just the three of us dossin’. It was chaos ‘n’ fun, mad jams, very uncontrived with our tongues firmly in our cheeks.” Gavin described the second mix of the song, which can be heard in the movie briefly as “It’s a demented camp/handbag/heavy metal/pop kind of thing.” He would later discuss both versions of the track: “There are two mixes – a “Bohemian” one and a “Hermaphrodite” one which is gay handbag done by a heavy metal band. There are some hysterically high vocals that are going to upset the neighbourhood dogs and a few other surprises that I’ll let you discover for yourself.” The second mix of the song has never been released.

The soundtrack album release was staggered with a May release in North America and a September release in Europe and the UK. This is due to the release schedule of the movie, and a much later release in Europe.

Of note, is that during the performance of the song “Elephant Love Medley” on the soundtrack album, each line of the song is sung by McGregor or Kidman and features lines taken from popular songs. One of the lines sung by McGregor is taken from U2’s song “Pride (In the Name of Love)”. U2 does not perform in any way on this song but are credited in the notes for the soundtrack on this song.

Liner Notes

Children of the Revolution: Performed by Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer. Vocals by Bono and Gavin Friday. Produced by Richard “Biff” Stannard, Julian Gallagher, Bono, Gavin Friday, Maurice Seezer. Engineered by Maurice Seezer and Ash Howes and Alvin Sweeney. Arranged by Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer. Programmed by Ash Howes and Maurice Seezer. Guitars by Bono, Maurice Seezer and Richard “Biff” Stannard. Keyboards by Maurice Seezer, Richard “Biff” Stannard and Julian Gallagher. Written by Marc Bolan.

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