Every teenager has a soundtrack...

One fall weekend, me and my best friend at the time went to see ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’. I went in knowing nothing about it. I didn’t know it was a book or that it took place in the 90s. I only cared about Logan Lerman. The film immediately became a favorite of mine and it still is to this day. When Emma Watson stood on the back of that truck while David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ played in the background, something clicked for me. I was in awe how someone could create and capture such a perfect moment in a film.

'The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ was written and directed by Stephen Chbosky based on his 1999 novel of the same name. The film was released on September 21, 2012 in the US. Ten years later, I’m revisiting the magic of the music, and how every teenager has their own personal soundtrack. Although music is not in the forefront of the plot, it plays a huge role in the film and in the book. The characters share mixtapes with each other, perform in a local production of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and say everything sounds better on vinyl.

2012. I couldn’t drive, and I surely didn’t have a truck to stand on, but I made do. As we trotted out of the cinema, two high school freshmen, just like Charlie, my friend Meredith and I, climbed in the back of my mother’s car, rolled down the windows and stuck our heads out as we blasted ‘Heroes’ on our 4th edition iPhones.

In the book, ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac was used as the tunnel song. For the film, Chbosky used the David Bowie single saying that the problem with ‘Landslide’ was it’s a "very soft ballad…when we got to the tunnel scene I just thought, 'We need something that’s not soft. We need something that’s driving, that’s epic in nature’..."Heroes" was a perfect fit." The tunnel scene is the essence of teenage freedom and fearlessness. It can also be a metaphor for the angst and personal demons: going through the dark tunnel and then coming out the other side into the light, which Charlie does at the end of the film after facing his trauma and getting help. And there's a feeling of being “infinite”. Sometimes in life things line up perfectly, the perfect song on the radio playing at the perfect place and time, an end to a Saturday night after going out with your friends. That can make one feel “infinite”. Another great film scene that uses ‘Heroes’ is the 1981 film “Christiane F.” After a concert, when the teens are running through Zoo Station, stealing money and hiding from the police, as Bowie sings in the background. Total teenage abandon.

Flash forward to December; after having been consumed by the film for months, my mother gifted me the ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ book. Happy Chanukah! It can be tricky to read a book after seeing the film, but in the case of ‘Perks’, I felt that I got more of the story, especially since Chbosky had adapted his own book for the screen. A pivotal moment of the story is Charlie giving his friend Patrick a mixtape titled ‘One Winter’. Unlike the movie, the book shows the actual track list. I vividly remember going on to a newer music streaming service called Spotify and started making my own ‘One Winter’ playlist. While searching for songs, I found others of the same name and more ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ themed playlists. This was my generation's version of exchanging mixtapes.

Creating the film’s soundtrack was an epic collaboration between Chbosky, music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas and music editor Jennifer Nash. Chbosky wrote on the soundtrack album’s liner notes:

"I’ve shared them with friends. And they have shared their favorites with me. Some of the songs are popular. Some of them are not known by a whole lot of people. But they are all great in their own way. And since these songs have meant a lot to me, I just wanted you to have them as a soundtrack for whatever you need them to be for your life."