Celebrity Jukebox #12: Sissy Spacek

To me, and most 80s kids, Mary Elizabeth Spacek will forever be Carrie, the awkward teenage girl who gets a bucket of pigs’ blood dumped on her at the school prom… before carrying out an even bloodier revenge on those responsible.

You may be unsurprised to learn that this famous scene gets referenced in any number of rap, metal and punk songs. I’m not going to listen to all of them, and I won’t make you do either, but this is the most obvious…

Mister Monster – Prom Night

Carrie, Carrie
You're my one true love
You look so good in pigs blood
Carrie, Carrie
Would you wear my ring?
Don't make me dig up what would've been
Carrie, Carrie
You're my one true love
We'd look so good in their blood
Carrie, Carrie
Would you be my date?

I don’t think Cliff’s song was about the same Carrie, but you never know with Cliff…

Sissy Spacek first came to fame a few years prior to Carrie, when she starred opposite Martin Sheen in Terrence Malik’s Badlands, the critically acclaimed story of a young Midwest couple who go on a killing spree across America. The movie was inspired by the true story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, and Sissy is utterly convincing as Sheen’s 15 year old accomplice, even though she was 24 at the time. Badlands, of course, proved highly influential on a certain Mr. Springsteen, both here…

Bruce Springsteen – Badlands

And here…

Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska

I saw her standin' on her front lawn
Just a-twirlin' her baton
Me and her went for a ride, sir
And ten innocent people died

That opening image comes straight from the movie, so it’s Sissy Bruce is picturing as he sings it.

Before becoming an actress, Sissy tried her hand at a musical career, recording this 1968 single in response to John & Yoko getting their kit off on the Two Virgins album cover…

Rainbo – John, You Went Too Far This Time

Although pop stardom was not to be, this clearly proved useful when Sissy appeared as Loretta Lynn in the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter, a role that won her an Oscar. She pulled off a pretty good Loretta impression on the soundtrack too…

Sissy Spacek – Coal Miner’s Daughter

A few years later, Sissy finally got to realise her pop star ambitions with a solo album that made the Top Twenty on the US Country Music charts.

Sissy Spacek - This Time I'm Gonna Beat You To The Truck

None of this really helps us find a song that mentions Sissy herself though. I did wonder if early noughties electronica band Spacek might have taken their name from her, but it turns out no, they took their name from band members Steve, Ed and Morgan Spacek. So now you know more than one famous Spacek!

Just as I was about to give up, Rodney Crowell came to the rescue with this track from his 2008 album Sex & Gasoline…

I love my friends, I love my wife
Four little babies are the light of my life
I love Sissy Spacek, I love Guy Clark
All the biscuits and gravy I can eat with a fork