>>16020331The sax theme is what me and most probably every person recalls most fondly from the whole thing. Or maybe just me. Either way, it's great. It's not just about the sound, but also the feel you get and what it brings to your mind every time that you listen to it.
How you listen to the song before watching the movie and after is really different, at least for me. Before experiencing the movie or in your first viewing of it towards the start, it's just the calming track that it is, exceptionally good of course, but not really much beyond that. But after you're done taking everything in, from then on it always has holds a sinister shadow to it. Not just a good piece of music anymore, it is relaxing still, but can't exactly be trusted, because now you know what it represents.
For me, it reminds me of the the broken American dream after the Vietnam War had just ended, and the absolute depravity that was going around during that time period. NYC during the 70's is regarded as one of the most fucked up years in the history of the place, and for pretty good reason. It was just hell. Everything you saw happening in Taxi Driver was just an absolute minuscule bit of the degeneracy going through that city during those years. When Travis talks about all the animals coming out at night and how sick it all made him, it genuinely was the case at the time. There's a documentary or two about it all.
So, whenever I hear the theme, sure, it's a great track, but I never listen to it without the image backdrop of a violent and degenerate city, going far beyond what just Travis himself experienced, because he was simply a snowflake in the avalanche. There's nothing really relaxing about the whole ordeal, yet it just is. The jazz sound is the romanticism that you would have for an environment like that, embodied. While in reality it's just hell, I guess. And whenever you hear it in the movie, it just relaxes you and sets you in the mood, despite how terrible it all is.
