I was about 17. It must have been either ‘68 or ‘69. And there was a person at school named Terry Sanford. He was a unique character in the school – it was a very big high school; I think 1,300 students across three grades. But Terry wasn't always at school. He was traveling and he looked like Ginger Baker a little bit. He had glasses.

Anyway, he was carrying this record. I was in a suburb of New York, and the record had this typeface that they used a lot in New York at that time, the same one used for the ‘Electric Circus’, a performance space that was kind of a hand-me-down from Andy Warhol, who’d been using it to both show films and to film in. It had some weird spaces; rooms that were inflatable, where you’d walk on a rubbery floor. I never went there, but I knew from the association with this space that the record would be something psychedelic and strange.

I asked Terry what it was, and he said it was a Muddy Waters record. I had Muddy Waters records, but I'd never seen this particular one, it was new. And inside there was a book of photographs, sort of like the Beatles White Album or something, with Muddy Waters getting his hair processed in Chicago. His hair was in this perfect stack, kind of like Elvis… so that was the insert. And the record also had this large photograph of him in almost biblical robes, with decorative ropes hanging off them, holding this outrageous guitar called a Thunderbird.

I ran out and bought my own copy of it. It was very interesting because it was Muddy Waters’ tongue-in-cheek attempt to make something that sounded like heavy metal or like heavier music, even though he had been influencing Led Zeppelin and the Stones. This was him joining that counterculture. Their creation was very funky, but it was blues-driven. And he had this guitarist – Phil Upchurch – a very fine jazz guitarist, who never really ventured into rock and roll. I guess he was a Chicago guitarist that Muddy Waters knew, who I imagined Waters asked to ‘play like Hendrix’.

And so this track showed his idea of playing like Hendrix. The dominant feature was this crazy guitar, with Waters singing these standards, like “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Black Cat Bone”. It was a collision between original 50s culture and late 60s counterculture, all mixed together.

My family had moved to Portland, Oregon in 1970. And then I moved back there in the 1980s to make my first feature, Mala Noche.

There was a community radio station in Portland called KBOO. They started out playing classical music, but then they became this completely eclectic group of DJs; like, whoever took the course in broadcasting and rented the equipment became the people that you listened to. They were usually very dedicated to their music, and sometimes it wasn't music at all – it was poetry or old jazz records, or politics sometimes. And once a month, on Thursday, there was a guy named Richard who would play what I’d call Musique concrète – soundscape music.

It simply sounded like good recordings of a place, for example. You would hear an amazing mix of a crowded beach, with the fidelity so intense that you can tell it wasn't just a stereo recording on the beach. It was added to, they constructed it – the artists, the composers. And I learned through his program that these composers had splintered off into this area of sound manipulation and had made compositions out of actual field recording or concrete sounds, like doors closing or engines running or trains going by.

And so eventually, I contacted Richard later in my career, in the ‘90s, to ask if he could suggest any recordings for use in Good Will Hunting. I did use some of the recordings, but it became difficult because they were so contemplative and long, that it wasn't until later, when I was making Elephant, that they would fit very well.

And so these tracks - “Walk Through Resonant Landscape” by Frances White as well as “Türen der Wahrnehmung (Doors of Perception)” by Hildegard Westerkamp - are very important. It took me a while, because even when we shot Gerry, we were making our loops; our own musique concrète – and I somehow didn’t think to use this music I’d heard on the radio. But in combining these two tracks with the long, contemplative tracks in Elephant – plus a recording of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – it became a big moment in the film’s history.

I’m obsessed with Burt Bacharach, and Hal David, his lyricist. I think I was obsessed with him for a while, because even before I really knew about him, I knew the music. Burt and Hal had other huge hits. They wrote “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head”, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There was something very mysterious about their collaboration. And Burt, who’s still alive, still a hit-maker, he lived through a lot; the Latin-Brazilian jazz explosion in the early ‘60s, the movements that brought about “The Girl From Ipanema”.

But this song was one [trumpeter] Herb Alpert sang on, called “This Guy's in Love with You”. It has this accidental gender mix-up to it, where it isn’t exactly clear whether it was a woman Herb is singing to… I find that funny.

The song was number one in the States in ‘68 and it was very funky, with this great electric piano at the centre. But Herb Alpert is not a singer; he had this kind of non-singing voice. So you have this amazing song, sung by this incredibly ordinary guy who doesn't know how to sing. Dionne Warwick would have usually been their vocalist. But I guess they wanted to experiment, and I find people experimenting in that upper echelon of commercialism really interesting.

I love Hal David’s lyrics. They’re so curious and very contemplative; songs like “Trains and Boats and Planes”, “A House is Not a Home”. And “Do You Know the Way to San Jose”, which is the story of all the people in Hollywood that I'm surrounded by, that become valets and gas station attendants.

This song was written by Delaney & Bonnie – but then re-recorded by the Carpenters. Delaney & Bonnie were this crazy Southern band making Roadhouse music; they opened up for Eric Clapton once and he ended up joining them as part of a traveling band. The song had kind of authenticity where Karen Carpenter singing it sends it in a different direction. Cleans it up into a … respectable presentation.

Originally it was called “Groupie”, because it's taken from the point of view of a groupie. And I know a famous groupie – her name is Penny Lane. There were a number of years where Penny and I were quite close, and I was always going out to her house and ended up moving nearby her in Portland. So sometimes I think of her when I'm listening to the words of the song. It’s almost like a Hal David lyric, in that it’s particularly specific: about this one person speaking to somebody from afar that's unattainable because they're a rock idol.

I also think of Karen Carpenter, herself, and Todd Haynes film Superstar. It’s the film he made about her with Barbie Dolls as actors. Todd and I never worked together, but we’re friendly; we crossed over when we were both living in Portland. And Superstar really is a fantastic film. So this one has a lot of connections for me.