Pink Slip, the rock group comprised of Lindsay Lohan, Christina Vidal, and Haley Hudson within the seminal 2003 teen movie Freaky Friday would possibly simply be the very best fictional band of our technology. They have been effortlessly cool, however nonetheless simply excessive schoolers coping with detention and mother drama like the remainder of us. Whenever you consider this traditional comedy-fantasy, the group’s efficiency of “Take Me Away” is often the primary to come back to thoughts; however for me, it’s their different tune (they solely have two): “Final,” which seems ultimately credit.
Maybe it’s due to my pop-loving tendencies, however its upbeat, catchy melody simply caught with me in perpetuity, and its repetitive lyrics made it simple to recollect. I get it; “Final” is perhaps extra saccharine and romantic than the angsty, anthemic lyrics in “Take Me Away.” But it surely nonetheless goes arduous—and there’s sufficient room to like each songs. The picture of Pink Slip rocking out barefoot in lace attire is simply as iconic to me because the well-known baseball tee, studded belt, and cargo pants Lohan wears whereas in character. Exterior of the film, “Final” made its rounds on Disney Channel and Radio Disney (RIP), and clips sometimes grace my Twitter and TikTok feeds. Immediately, it has over 21 million streams on Spotify.
“After we heard the tune, it match that vitality we have been going for. Lyrically, it completely labored,” Freaky Friday’s music supervisor Lisa Brown Leopold tells ELLE.com.
It’s no query that the love for these songs is inextricably tied to the love for Freaky Friday itself, which turns 20 at the moment. Based mostly on the guide by Mary Rogers, and a remake of the 1976 movie, Disney’s model directed by Mark Waters follows a straitlaced psychologist, Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis), and her punk teenage daughter Anna (Lohan), who swap our bodies underneath an unintentional spell. The film lands in an fascinating place in Lohan’s filmography—5 years after The Father or mother Lure, one yr earlier than Imply Ladies—and featured her singing earlier than she launched her pop music profession. It stays deeply nostalgic for millennials and older Zoomers alike, possible due to its edgy aughts style, relatable mother-daughter storyline, and infectious music.
Waters, a rock fan and music lover, knew he wished a guitar-heavy sound for the movie. It was the early 2000s, on the heels of the ’90s grunge period, “and guitars have been type of falling out of favor in a bizarre manner,” he explains. “The rise of hip-hop and EDM have been looming, and pop was redefining itself as one thing that was principally extra synthesized.”
So when it got here to forming Pink Slip, he seemed to acts from the riot grrrl motion, like Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill. “And I assumed, ‘Yeah, let’s have this band be of that ilk,’” Waters recollects. Avril Lavigne, who was developing on the time and launched “Sk8er Boi” the yr prior, was additionally a giant affect. Waters wished to embrace these grungy parts to magnify the variations between Anna and Tess. In reality, he needed to rework the unique script to make Anna and her mom appear extra like opposites.
“The unique screenplay had [Anna] being a journalist on the faculty paper who wished to get an interview with Gwen Stefani,” he says. “So I assumed, ‘Effectively, so she’s type of a nerd who likes rock and roll, however she’s nonetheless a nerd and her mother’s a nerd. So what’s the enjoyable level in that?’”
Thus, the revised screenplay included the band’s Home of Blues efficiency and a “actually nice shredding guitar solo” within the climax—which occurs throughout “Take Me Away.” (Musician and producer Amir Derakh, the guitarist for the band Orgy, wrote the solo for the tune.) Within the movie, it’s Jamie Lee Curtis who performs the solo from the wings, as Anna and Tess’ our bodies are nonetheless swapped by the point of the massive efficiency. However Lohan wished to play one too—enter “Final.”
“[The] cause ‘Final’ was even discovered and created and tailor-made the way in which it was, was as a result of Lindsay labored actually arduous to study to play the guitar within the early scenes within the film. And she or he spent a number of time with classes and actually liked it. And a part of the joke of the film was that each time she’s about to play the solo, the ability cuts off. She’s all the time denied attending to play the solo.”
Lohan was “irritated,” Waters recollects. “And so I mentioned, ‘Effectively, you understand what, let’s do an finish credit score tune and we’ll do a solo for you.’”
Lisa Brown Leopold had fairly the duty on her fingers. Her work with sourcing songs required listening to a great deal of bodily CDs—this was earlier than streaming and digital music—to search out the fitting tunes. For the closing credit spot, she reached out to main music publishers, which symbolize songwriters, for one thing that would work. “I’d undergo tons of of CDs, actually sitting on my flooring,” she says.
As most music supervisors do, she introduced her selects to the director, together with producer Andrew Gunn. “And we’d have listening periods and discuss concerning the songs.” (That’s what they did for “Take Me Away,” too.) They landed on the monitor composed by Jeff Coplan and Robert Ellis Orrall.
“‘Final’ was similar to, ‘This was the very best monitor I heard,’” Waters recollects. “After which we labored with them and labored with Amir [Derakh] to re-tailor the monitor to make it extra of a rock tune and make it match for Lindsay.” The demo leaned extra pop at first, however then Derakh labored his magic with one other guitar shredding solo. He even taught Lohan how you can bounce all the way down to her knees whereas enjoying. As a seasoned musician, Derakh suggested the actors throughout rehearsals on “how you can be a rock star,” Brown Leopold says.
The addition “made Lindsay that rather more excited to do all the band apply realizing that, ‘Oh yeah, I get to do that huge solo on the finish and have a tune,’” Waters says. “After which the tune ended up being a very catchy tune and a very enjoyable sequence for the tip credit, simply to have the ability to minimize to the assorted gamers and all that and have somewhat enjoyable on the finish.”
Previous to filming, prep included real-life band rehearsals for six weeks, thrice every week, main as much as the shoot, in response to Brown Leopold. First, they recorded the songs—the soundtrack was produced by Michael Simpson for Hollywood Data—after which the solid would apply enjoying with the monitor. (Lohan and Hudson needed to discover ways to play guitar, whereas Vidal, their drummer, and bassist have been already skilled musicians.) “We actually labored arduous to make it this genuine storage band,” she remembers. “And Lindsay was brand-new to the studio and he or she wasn’t polished, however that labored for the character.”
“I actually really feel like throughout that band rehearsal is after I actually fell in love with the tune,” Brown Leopold says. “The tune checked off all of the packing containers after I heard it, however it actually wasn’t till we have been doing it that it simply felt proper.”
Filming that efficiency occured over the past week of manufacturing, Waters recollects. On set, “everybody’s having fun with the sensation that we’ve type of executed a great job with the film. We already felt prefer it had come collectively properly. And we didn’t actually do elaborate protection or something. We simply had two cameras on dollies type of zipping backwards and forwards doing rock video-type protection of the band, then of the viewers and rocking out with the band.” They even needed to stick kneepads on Lohan as a result of she did a number of takes of the knee dive throughout her guitar solo.
Trying again, Waters admits that it may not have made logical sense for Pink Slip to carry out at Tess’ marriage ceremony, however he finally thought, what, who cares? “The viewers has a smile on their face they usually’re going to get pleasure from it. So we’re going to justify having this additional tune.”
Twenty years later, “Final” and its darkish sister “Take Me Away” nonetheless hit. “It was such a particular venture, and it undoubtedly was consultant of the time,” says Brown Leopold. “We put it collectively because the soundtrack, however it’s cool that every tune feels timeless and you’ll take heed to them [separately] now.” Brown Leopold, now the manager music director for Disney Channel, presently works on Excessive Faculty Musical: The Musical: The Collection starring Olivia Rodrigo. She sees threads of that 2000s punk really feel in Rodrigo’s personal music, and in bands like The Linda Lindas. “After I take into consideration Olivia doing her stuff now, I really feel like Freaky Friday was a part of that path.”
Whereas elements of the movie, like its portrayal of Asian stereotypes, haven’t aged properly, the songs and the mother-daughter relationship on the coronary heart of the movie are eternal. When Waters was supplied the job, his spouse was pregnant with their first baby. “And we knew it was a woman, and he or she mentioned, ‘This can be a signal. It’s a must to do that film,’” he recollects. He even made a cameo with the newborn on the finish of the movie.
“It’s a film that’s in some methods devoted to my first daughter,” Waters says. “And I ended up having two daughters. So it’s one thing that’s resonated with my spouse and each of them as properly.” (In fact, the youngsters have seen the film. Brown has additionally watched it along with her son, who’s now 15.)
Many people who grew up loving Freaky Friday and seeing ourselves in Anna are most likely nearer to Tess’ age now. (Curtis was about 45 when the movie was launched; the oldest millennials in 2023 are 42 years outdated.) Even when not all of us are moms, perhaps we’re no less than sufficiently old to grasp what our personal mothers have been going by way of after we look again at our rebellious teenage years. We didn’t want to modify our bodies; with the assistance of time, we finally began to see life by way of her eyes.
Freaky Friday is streaming on Disney+.
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Erica Gonzales is the Senior Tradition Editor at ELLE.com, the place she oversees protection on TV, films, music, books, and extra. She was beforehand an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There’s a 75 % probability she’s listening to Lorde proper now.