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Boléro, a one-movement orchestral piece composed by Maurice Ravel, has found many uses in popular music and in film and television for its recurring theme which has reached its popular appeal. The music is also featured in various sport occasions, mostly in ice skating.

Films

  • Boléro is used during episode of the woman in the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon directed by Akira Kurosawa.
  • Boléro is featured in the 1956 Mexican comedy film El Bolero de Raquel, starring Mario Moreno Reyes " Cantinflas" as a street shoe-cleaner (a bolero, as they are called in Mexico).
  • Boléro was featured in the 1977 Italian animated movie Allegro Non Troppo, directed by Bruno Bozzetto.
  • Boléro was used in a sequence in the fantasy animation Wizards (1977) by Ralph Bakshi, which featured a post-nuclear war wasteland scenario several hundred years in the future.
  • Boléro was used in the movie 10 (1979) to great acclaim. The character played by Bo Derek keeps restarting this music on a phonograph, while trying to seduce Dudley Moore. The identification of the piece with Bo Derek in the minds of moviegoers of the time was the admitted inspiration for the movie Bolero (1984) starring Bo five years later.
  • Boléro is the opening and ending theme of the French musical Les Uns et les Autres (1980), directed by Claude Lelouch.
  • Boléro, in the piece's entirety, plays over the carnage of the Fourth Battle of Tiamat in the 1988 anime film Legend of Galactic Heroes: My Conquest is the Sea of Stars, the first film in the Legend of the Galactic Heroes series.
  • Boléro is featured in "Stairway to Lenin", part of a music video called The Orchestra (1990), directed by Zbigniew Rybczyński, and produced for PBS's Great Performances, Canal+, and Japan Broadcasting Corporation. It is regularly shown on the Classic Arts Showcase channel.
  • Assorted clips of Boléro form nearly all the background music for the twenty-minute short film Digimon Adventure (1999) which kicked off the Digimon anime franchise.
  • A rendition of Boléro (arranged by Ryuichi Sakamoto) is used in the Brian DePalma film Femme Fatale (2002) where Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (now known as Rebecca Romijn) and Rie Rasmussen are making out in a restroom stall and during the closing credits.
  • Boléro is played in the background of the movie The New Guy (2002) in the scene in which the new guy is dragging a knocked out tough guy through the halls.
  • Boléro was played in the background during the introduction monologue of Basic (2003) directed by John McTiernan.

TV series

  • Boléro was frequently played in the first season of the anime series Digimon.
  • Boléro is played during Season 2, Episode 20 of the TV show ALF (1988). Guest star Anne Ramsey and her husband in real life, Logan Ramsey, would be her boyfriend in this episode. They made out to Boléro at the end.
  • Boléro appears in Futurama, last episode of its season 5 " Into the Wild Green Yonder Part 4", in which Fry proceeds to play the Holophoner.
  • Boléro is played in the 2006 Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Planet" during the transition of the Sanctuary Base from day to night. This is because it got 666 in the ice-skating.
  • Beléro is used as Kenny's theme on Kenny vs. Spenny.
  • Bolero is used in "Yotveta" commercial from 2002: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eLl38izU78

Video games

  • Boléro was the original intended theme during the opening of The Legend of Zelda video game for the NES. The policies of the Ravel estate prevented its use, but the rhythm melody for the eventual included theme (an arrangement of the overworld theme) remains similar to the snare rhythm of Boléro.
  • One of the songs which a player can learn in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is called Boléro of Fire, and has a snare rhythm similar to its eponym. It is taught to the protagonist by Sheik upon entering Death Mountain Crater after defeating the Forest Temple.

Popular music

  • Boléro has been rearranged and performed by many artists, including Pink Martini, quotations in the chorus of Rufus Wainwright's "Oh What A World", and an Emerson, Lake & Palmer version called "Abaddon's Bolero" on their Trilogy album.
  • Larry Adler used to perform the Boléro on his harmonica (mouth organ). Ravel even made Adler exempt from paying royalities on his performances of it.
  • Jefferson Airplane used the ostinato snare pattern of Boléro in its 1967 song " White Rabbit", in which the driving, hypnotic rhythm evokes the allure and effects of psychedelic drugs.
  • A composition of "Beck's Bolero" appeared on Jeff Beck's 1968 album Truth. It featured the playing of both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, and the writing was credited to Page. Although Page is officially credited for the arrangement, Beck has also claimed to be the primary creator of the piece. This has remained a point of contention between the two. Page later incorporated parts of it in Led Zeppelin's " How Many More Times" as an inside joke referencing the dispute.
  • Boléro was re-arranged and performed by jazz-rock band Colosseum in the late 1960s.
  • The music features as part of the larger ensemble James Gang instrumental "The Bomber", played predominately as an electric guitar solo by Joe Walsh. The version featuring Bolero was originally trimmed from the song on the 1970 James Gang Rides Again album, but can be found complete on the Joe Walsh compilation "Little Did He Know".
  • The Dead Kennedys song " California Über Alles" in 1979 uses a very sinister variation at the end, giving the impression of Jerry Brown's triumphant hippie-fascist vision.
  • A heavy metal version of the song, called "Great Boleros of Fire", was the show-opening number for Meat Loaf.
  • Isao Tomita featured Boléro on "The Ravel Album" (alternatively known as "Daphnis et Chloé - Boléro") in 1980. As a keyboard virtuoso the track remains for the most part faithful to the original, the progressive layering and shift between instruments (featuring synthesised oboe, clarinet and flute alongside less traditional instruments only a Moog synthesizer or similar could produce) - and of course the ever present snare drums (in this case played by a distorted tinny 'orchestra strike' sound). In all it lasts only 9:16 and peters out on an almost 'traditional' organ sound.
  • Boléro was covered by Frank Zappa during live concerts of his 1988 tour. One of these performances was released on the 1991 album The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life. However, because of complaints from the Ravel estate, the song was removed from versions of the album released in the UK, where the composition is still copyrighted. The signature rhythm enters 4 minutes into the 5 minute piece.
  • Boléro is the opening song in the 1999 Broadway production Blast!, and also serves as a reprise at the very end of the show. The snare drummer playing the signature rhythm begins in the middle of the stage under a spotlight and remains stationary as the rest of the ensemble moves around the drummer.
  • Blue Man Group used Boléro as the background music for their "Twinkie Feast" sketch, in which they invite a woman from the audience to eat Twinkies with them. Once they moved from the Luxor to the Venetian in Las Vegas in September 2005, they changed the music to an original piece of their own, a change which was later implemented in their other theatrical shows.

Sport

  • Ice dancers Torvill and Dean skated to Boléro in the long program of their gold medal-winning performance at the 1984 Winter Olympics, which is still the only ice dancing performance ever to have received a perfect score from every judge.
  • The 1998 FIFA World Cup and 2006 FIFA World Cup Final Draw ceremonies featured video clips having the Boléro as their background music.
  • Figure skater Michelle Kwan skated to Boléro as her free skate music in the 2004-2005 season.

Ballets

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