Varèse Sarabande release the original soundtrack to Po, featuring original music by Burt Bacharach and Joseph Bauer. The album features the original song 'Dancing With Your Shadow', composed by Bacharach, with lyrics by Billy Mann, and performed by Sheryl Crow. Po follows the story of a recently widowed father struggling to raise his 10-year-old autistic son...

This is an album full of sweet, beautiful moments. The song 'Dancing With Your Shadow' is instantly memorable - in fact, to the point where I listened to the album and then relistened to it a few days later and was convinced the instrumental version of the song was referencing one of Burt Bacharach's old classic songs - one I couldn't quite remember the name of, but I knew it well.

Bacharach was originally approached to licence a song to the film, but the narrative of the movie drew him in as he had a daughter who had suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome and eventually took her own life. The more he watched the movie the more he decided he'd love to score it. For the song, 'Dancing With Your Shadow', Bacharach reached out to lyricist Billy Mann, who is also raising an autistic child.

Joseph Bauer added additional music, and it would have been interesting to learn which of the tracks were composed by him and which, outside of the main theme, were composed by Bacharach.

We also get a new rendition of 'Close to You' which, instrumentally, is also referenced a few times, briefly throughout the album. The soundtrack contains 27 tracks (47 min, 58 sec).

It's incredible, considering that Bacharach is in his late '80s, that he still has a flair for beautiful, subtle compositions which lodge themselves in your brain. Once again he knocks this one out of the park.

9

Darren Rea