My favorite music - album 3

Music helps enhance almost every experience. From watching a movie to just living, music can make things better.

Now, you need to understand something about me. Music changes everything. I could be watching something sad with no music and I feel nothing. No melancholy, no tears, nothing. Add a sad melody behind the same scene, and I'm a sobbing mess. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I could be watching the hero fight his way through hordes of the enemy to save the world, and I feel nothing. No excitement, no joy, nothing. Add a heroic melody behind, and my heart is pounding along with the hero's.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who goes through that. I'm just documenting it. Anyway ...

Something else you should know - I have a lot of soundtracks. Like hundreds (not an exaggeration, by the way). I've got soundtracks in styles ranging from "Star Wars" and Lord of the Rings (of course) to "Aladdin" and "Rad." I'm not an expert in music or soundtracks, by any stretch of the imagination, but I know what I like.

If you've ever watched "The Princess Bride," you know what its soundtrack is like. The music follows the story perfectly and enhances every part of it. You can hear a phrase anywhere - in a store, in the car, at work - and you know exactly what's happening at that point of the movie. And, if you're like me, you start quoting that scene. You can't help yourself.

"The Princess Bride" was composed by a rock-n-roll guitarist. Mark Knopfler was the lead guitarist for Dire Straits, a band I've actually heard of. It wasn't his first soundtrack, either. It was his third. But he got this movie. He understood its heart and its tongue-in-cheek attitude. He captured the fun, drama, excitement and romance perfectly. He even received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song in 1988 for "Storybook Love." And the track for the sword fight? It couldn't be more perfect.

It's an interesting exercise to think about what a movie would be like with a different soundtrack. One composed by someone else with different ideas, a different style, different favorite instruments and chord progressions. Sometimes it's easy to imagine that. Some soundtracks should probably have had a different composer. Others are, quite simply, perfect. "The Princess Bride" is one of the latter.