This Is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr
Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck
The music industry has always been more forgiving of controversy than Hollywood, so it is no surprise Johnny Depp’s first project after his successful defamation case against his former wife Amber Heard should be a collaboration with the veteran blues rocker Jeff Beck. What is perhaps ironic, though, is that a celebrity who has become a lightning rod for the debate about toxic relationships and the future of the #MeToo movement should open the next chapter of his career—and mark his 59th birthday—with a power-ballad paean to the Tinseltown icon Hedy Lamarr.
Lamarr was an actor and inventor whose beauty has condemned her to be better known for her screen success than for her contributions to science. And although there is obviously a feminist case for her to be heralded as an overlooked figure, you’d have received long odds on Depp being the one leading the cheers. The actor has been rarely out of the headlines since his failed libel action against the Sun newspaper, two years ago, over its description of him as a “wife-beater”. And the road back to Hollywood continues to look rocky, even after he was awarded $10.4 million, or about €9.8 million, in his recent defamation suit against Heard. (She was in turn awarded $2 million, or €1.9 million, having countersued for defamation.)
Johnny Depp fans will no doubt rush to listen to the fruits of his labours. Others might conclude that Captain Jack Sparrow: The Rock’n’Roll Years is a sonic treat they can live without
With all that in the background it is impossible, to paraphrase George Michael, to listen without prejudice to This Is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr. That said, this rather lethargic ballad is exactly what you would expect from the coming together of a British blues stalwart and a Hollywood actor in his late 50s who describes music as his first love and who sees in The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards a role model to emulate.
Depp has a soft, halting singing voice, here paired with strumming guitar and low-key orchestration. Half-singing, half-intoning—in the video he and Beck share a stage—he delivers lyrics that some will judge schmaltzy, others heartfelt. “I don’t believe … in humans any more,” he sings as Beck chimes in on slide guitar.
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As he once played the Hollywood misfit Ed Wood on screen, you can see why Depp should be fascinated with Lamarr. Though she was famed as a “bombshell” through the 1940s and 1950s, her role as a scientific pioneer included helping to invent the frequency-hopping technology that is the basis for wifi and GPS tracking systems.
Depp and Beck aren’t done. The actor has written another song for an upcoming album, 18, to be released on July 15th. (The project also features covers of The Beach Boys and Killing Joke, along with a rather improbable take on Midnight Walker, a 1991 piece for the uilleann pipes by the Dublin trad player Davy Spillane.)
And of course the duo were touring the UK together when Depp learned that he had succeeded in his case against Heard. Johnny Depp fans—who came pouring from the social-media woodwork during the trial—will no doubt rush to listen to the fruits of his and Beck’s labours. Others might conclude that Captain Jack Sparrow: The Rock’n’Roll Years is a sonic treat they can afford to do without.
