Song of the Day #1911

Song of the Day: Taxi Driver (“Soundtrack Suite”) [YouTube link], composed by Bernard Herrmann, concludes our 5-day mini tribute to this film score maestro. This was the composer’s final film score before his death on Christmas Eve in 1975. He didn’t live to see the film’s debut on February 8, 1976. Directed by Martin Scorsese, and starring an unhinged Robert DeNiro, along with a terrific supporting cast that included Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd, this film sports another side to the Herrmann cinematic musical legacy. It’s jazz-inflected hue explores alienation, melancholy, psychological trauma, and suspense, earning Herrmann his fifth Oscar nomination for Best Original Score (he won only once, for the score to the 1941 film, “The Devil and Daniel Webster“).