Everyone from Coldplay to Animal Collective has cited it as an inspiration. It is a Star Wars scene that has become a cult classic. Musicians explain why. Luke Skywalker entered Mos Eisley Cantina, out of all the gin joints across the galaxy. The tavern, a vile hive of evil where your pint might be spilled by an unfriendly alien bum-face, is etched in the minds of almost every sci-fi lover alive due to its appearance in Star Wars: A New Hope (1977).
However, what Mos Eisley lacked was charm, it made up for with live entertainment. The regular gig of Figrin D’an, the Modal Nodes or the Cantina Band – the lobster-looking musicians who’s bizarre interstellar version of Dixieland Jazz, unwisely called “jizz”, is currently enjoying an influence on Bjork‘s latest album, Folsora.
Atli Finnsson, a member of the electronic trio sideproject, says that Bjork “explained to us the conceptual elements as well as the world-building behind this album when she invited to us to make beats.” At one of their shows, Bjork met the group, who are members of grassroots Reykjavik collective Post-Dreifing. They became close friends through a mutual love for avant-garde electronica and she sketched her plans for Ovule, which would be the track that they would collaborate on.
Orlygur Steinar arnalds, sideproject member, said that she explained the origin of the song to her. “She mentioned some obscure Finnish jazz bar that existed in the future.” She said it should sound like the Cantina Band. We tried to create a futuristic, jazzy beat.
John Williams was jazzy and futuristic when he composed the original pieces that the Modal Nodes performed in the movie. The Oscar-winning Star Wars score was inspired by “19th century romantic, symphonic” music. George Lucas, the writer/director of Star Wars, “didn’t want electronic or concrete musical music”, Williams wrote in his sleevenotes. He felt that the music should have an emotional resonance. But, Lucas wanted Williams’s creation of something new for the movie’s only diegetic music.
Williams said that “I had no idea what the sound should sound like” in 1997 to Film Score Monthly. Lucas suggested Williams picture aliens discovering sheet music by Benny Goodman in 1930s swing, and trying to play it without understanding what Earth music sounds like. Williams went back to his piano, and he created “the silliest series of old-time swing band songs”, which he arranged for the “Trinidad steel drums” and “out-of-tune kamoos”. Electronic instrumentation was limited to the ARP synthesizer, which produced a tinny bass line. Reverb and filters were added to make the tracks more earthly.
Williams called the cantina music “an exception”, but it captured the imagination of cinemagoers. Not least because the Mos Eisley scene, in which D’an and his Modal Nodes were played by the movie’s makeup artists, trying to breathe in their rubber masks, was so memorable.
Domenico Monardo, also known as Meco, was a musician and sci fi nut. He recorded a disco version the Star Wars theme. It included a long detour into the Cantina music. Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band topped the US charts in 1977. It sold more than 2,000,000 copies, twice the amount of the soundtrack album. It is still the most popular instrumental single in US history.
The Cantina group has been a beloved part of the Star Wars universe. Comics and spin-off books have created backstories for Modal Nodes. Figrin D’an is a gambler and, not coincidentally with Lando Calrissian.
Coldplay, for instance, has cited the Cantina group as an influencer. Their 2021 album Music of the Spheres was inspired by Chris Martin’s rewatch of the cantina scene. Animal Collective also cites the song as one of their inspirations on Centipede Hz 2012.
This song has been covered in many different styles, including bluegrass, ragtime and heavy metal. It was covered by Ash, Northern Irish rockers. They also performed the B-side of 1995’s Girl From Mars. Tim Wheeler, singer/guitarist, recalls that the producer left the session. “It was like the last straw.” We loved Star Wars. Mark, our bassist had an almost complete collection of Star Wars action figures. And we just bought the box set with the soundtracks. I was able to figure out the song by listening to the CD note-by-note with my guitar in hand. It has so many notes!
Sideproject’s twentysomethings claim they were familiar with the Cantina band because they “played the Lego Star Wars videogame a million times” when they were children. Finnsson adds that it is a “very meme-dense piece of music” for their generation. It wasn’t the Cantina’s sound that made the most impact on Fossora’s contribution – Finnsson said that it was the “cantina bands playing strange, alien instruments but the sounds are so common” that Finnsson found disturbing.
“That conversation with her, it was really inspiring, and I found myself imagining music in a different world.” Arnalds says, “What would music sound like if it didn’t have any jazz contact?” “It’s been a point of reference for our work since then – writing music for another place, imagining music that sounds like what we make. Star Wars is a wonderful starting point.
