Gerard Way rearranges traditional folk song for upcoming horror film
According to a tweet from director Kevin Smith, former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way has recorded a song which will be featured in his upcoming film Tusk. The Clerks director, who has been known to nerd out with Way over comics on his Smodcast and Hulu show Spoilers, describes the song as “achingly beautiful.”
Holy shit! The cherry on top of the TUSK sundae? @GerardWay just recorded the most achingly beautiful closing song for the flick! #WalrusYes
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) April 8, 2014
Tusk, a horror film about which there are few details yet, was filmed last year and the premise, according to IMDB is: “When his best friend and podcast co-host goes missing in the backwoods of Canada, a young guy joins forces with his friend's girlfriend to search for him.”
A press release for the film, which was still in production as of January, described it as “a modern-day monster movie that follows a journalist named Wallace (Justin Long) who finds the story of a lifetime in Mr. Howe (Michael Parks) a worldwide adventurer with amazing tales and a curious penchant for walruses.”
Tusk is tentatively set for release this fall.
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UPDATED: April 10, 2014
Gerard has clarified that the song he recorded for the song, though rearranged and rewritten is not an original. It is actually, as Smith revealed in an interview with KROQ, “an old English folk song written in the 1600s entitled [sic] ‘Oh, Waly, Waly.”
“Gerard turned the piece into this achingly beautiful, haunting declaration of undying, hopeless love,” Smith said. “If you’ve ever been in that kind of love, this song will crush you. It’s such a heartbreaker, you can’t help but well up with tears. You could play this track at a wedding or at a funeral and it would be equally appropriate in both places.”
Just so everyone knows, the song I recorded for Kevin's film is very old and public domain, though I did re-arrange/re-write some lyrics.
— Gerard Way (@gerardway) April 10, 2014
And it is a song that has been covered many times. It's traditional, yo.
— Gerard Way (@gerardway) April 10, 2014
Stream one of those many covers of “Oh, Waly, Waly” or “The Water Is Wide” below:
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Meanwhile, Way was recently busy mixing his newest musical endeavor in Wales. Catch a snippet of what may be to come from him in the below fan recording of “Millions,” which Way debuted last October at his and Grant Morrisson's GRAPHIC panel at the Sydney Opera House:
