"Rome, Italian Style" Track of the Day: Goldfrapp, "Lovely Head"

Song: "Lovely Head" by Goldfrapp
Released: 2000
Why's it part of the "Rome, Italian Style" playlist?: Trouser Press came up with a good shorthand description for "Lovely Head," the first single off the duo Goldfrapp's debut album Felt Mountain: "If Lee Van Cleef had ever romanced Shirley Bassey, 'Lovely Head,' which sounds like a score in search of a Sergio Leone film, would have been their song."

Ennio Morricone's influence on Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory, which they acknowledged in the Felt Mountain liner notes with their shout-outs to Morricone and Leone, is most evident in "Lovely Head." There's whistling, harpsichords, percussion reminiscent of Il Maestro's Sicilian Clan main title theme and a vocal effect that's as bizarre as the coyote howls in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly score, but it's more of a Goldfrapp touch than a Morricone touch. Goldfrapp, who provides the whistling during "Lovely Head," makes her voice sound remarkably like a theremin(*), with the help of a synthesizer that distorts her vocals (her theremin-like howls also turn up during another Felt Mountain cut and "Rome, Italian Style" Track of the Day, "Pilots").

(*) In his intro for the TCM Essentials Jr. broadcast of the theremin-filled Thing from Another World a couple of days ago, host Bill Hader said, "Transformers would be so much better with a theremin." True that.

"Lovely Head" also channels the grandiose sound of the secondary themes John Barry composed for either 007's love interests or the foreign destinations where 007 would shag those love interests. The Bondian strings and drums of "Lovely Head" inspired a YouTuber to replace "All Time High," one of Barry's weakest Bond ballads, with "Lovely Head" in the Octopussy opening titles.

Stefon Mad Libs is the hot and (adjective) meme that answers the question: "(John Cassavetes movie title)?"

In honor of Leonard B. Stern, the recently deceased Honeymooners and Get Smart writer who created the never-not-boring parlor game and childhood staple Mad Libs, here's a highly addictive new version of Mad Libs that I spotted on Crushable.

It's inspired by the most consistently funny character during the 36th and most recent season of SNL, Weekend Update nightlife correspondent Stefon. (The Ed Hardy shirt-clad expert on New York clubbing is played by Bill Hader. He's always "corpsing," or erupting into uncontrollable laughter and breaking character, whenever he appears as Stefon because the SNL writers throw away the Stefon lines Hader rehearsed with and then replace them on the cue cards with completely new lines during the live broadcast, hence Hader's surprised and giggly reactions.)

Here are the results from one of the holiday-themed Stefon Mad Libs I played around with.