Christopher’s Songbook – “Twist and Shout” by The Beatles (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off soundtrack)

LYRICS

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(Ozarks Unbound publisher Christopher Spencer provides this week’s Songbook entries based on songs featured in movies. If you’d like to submit seven songs for Songbook, please contact me at cspencer@ozarksunbound.com)

You wanted a friend like Ferris Bueller, or you wanted to be him, or you wanted to date him. He’s just a cool dude, especially to those of us in our early teens when the 1986 John Hughes’ film was released.

Ferris was pure wish fulfillment, an astute teenage philosopher who broke The Fourth Wall with abandon.

Here he pops up and is suddenly the center of the parade, singing Wayne Newton’s Danke Schoen first and then leading into The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout.” I remember rewinding this scene repeatedly, thinking just how cool it would be to be just that cool. It was also my first exposure to The Beatles independent of my parent’s influence.

Be sure you take note of the glasses fashion in the video. They do not age well.

There are a ton of stand out moments in this film, but the other scene that I remember best – which has grown better with age – is when Ferris talks his way into an exclusive restaurant in downtown Chicago with the assumed identity of Abe Froman, the ‘Sausage King of Chicago;. Here’s an online tribute to the man and the myth.

That kid’s got moxie and I still love him for it. Kind of like Juno without the annoying rapid-fire pop culture jargon.

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