Richard Linklater has always been a very musically minded filmmaker. He filled School of Rock with hit tracks from its titular genre, he introduced audiences to the Beatles’ “The Black Album” in Boyhood, and he’s currently working on an adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along that isn’t scheduled to finish shooting until 2039.
Arguably the director’s most iconic soundtrack – and one of the most iconic soundtracks of all time – is that of his cult classic hangout comedy Dazed and Confused, which contains songs by such legendary artists as Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, and Bob Dylan to capture its mid-1970s historical context.
“Paranoid” By Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath’s heavy metal classic “Paranoid” plays when O’Bannion and Benny show up to attack Hirschfelder and his buddies. They all scatter and the seniors decide to focus on Hirschfelder.
They hold him up against a chain-link fence and give him a brutal paddling (though not as brutal as the one they gave Mitch) before giving him a beer and sending him on his way.
“Rock And Roll All Nite” By Kiss
The original plan for the last day of school is to have a big party at Pickford’s house, but his parents catch wind of it, so he has to call it off. Instead, Wooderson plans a beer bust in the woods.
As everybody heads to the beer bust, Kiss’ “Rock and Roll All Nite” plays on the soundtrack. This ties in nicely with Pickford unveiling his statues of the members of Kiss.
“Sweet Emotion” By Aerosmith
Since Dazed and Confused loosely revolves around the characters’ quest to secure Aerosmith tickets, it’s appropriate that the movie’s opening titles feature one of the band’s greatest hits: “Sweet Emotion.”
The song carries over a short montage of what all the main characters are doing at the start of the day: Benny is tricking out his paddle ahead of the freshman beatings and Michelle is rolling a joint as she and Pickford pull into the school parking lot.
“No More Mr. Nice Guy” By Alice Cooper
After Mitch’s older sister asks the seniors to go easy on him, they decide to get him worse than all the other freshmen. The guys wait outside the baseball field where Mitch is pitching and then grab him on his way out.
Alice Cooper’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy” plays on the soundtrack as Mitch is bent over the hood of a car and mercilessly paddled in slow-motion by each of the guys.
“Hurricane” By Bob Dylan
The catchy beat of Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” pairs perfectly with the awesomeness of Wooderson, Pink, and Mitch’s slow-motion walk into the pool hall, The Emporium.
The song itself deals with a very serious subject. It tells the story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a middleweight boxer who was wrongfully convicted of a couple of murders that took place in a similar pool hall in Paterson, New Jersey.
“Free Ride” By The Edgar Winter Group
When the night gets into full swing and everybody drives out to meet up, The Edgar Winter Group’s “Free Ride” sets the stage for several hours of partying and heavy drinking.
The appeal of this movie is that it captures the youthful spirit of high schoolers with their whole lives ahead of them, and this 1973 boogie rock hit plays into that spirit beautifully.
“Slow Ride” By Foghat
Foghat’s “Slow Ride” is the final song in Dazed and Confused, so it’s the track with the unfortunate burden of playing the movie out. It’s one of the film’s many diegetic tracks, as Mitch gets home from a night of partying, shrugs off his prying mom, puts on his headphones, and listens to the Foghat classic.
The song carries over as Wooderson and his passengers tear down the highway on their way to Houston to pick up Aerosmith tickets.
“Why Can’t Be Friends?” By War
Not only is War’s “Why Can’t Be Friends?” a beloved classic; there’s an ironic bite to its use in Dazed and Confused. The song plays as the senior girls haze the freshman girls as a form of initiation.
As Darla and the other seniors terrorize the freshmen by covering them in glitter and condiments, the soundtrack begs a very simple question: why can’t the seniors and freshmen just learn to get along?
“Tuesday’s Gone” By Lynyrd Skynyrd
Linklater is a master of choosing recognizable classics that also fit perfectly with the mood of a certain scene. The use of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone” when the beer bust starts winding down is a prime example.
When the kegs are all tapped out and everyone starts making breakfast plans, the melancholic rhythm of the Skynyrd hit effectively captures the bittersweetness of the end of a great night.
“School’s Out” By Alice Cooper
The opening guitar solo of Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” kicks in as Ms. Stroud’s students file out of her class and she warns them about “being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth of July brouhaha” over the summer.
For a montage of kids leaving school for the summer, “School’s Out” was a no-brainer. Arguably, the Dazed and Confused montage is a better music video for “School’s Out” than the official one.