I didn’t expect A Mighty Wind to stick with me the way it has. I knew it would be funny — it’s a Christopher Guest film, after all. But what I didn’t expect was to find myself, weeks later, listening to the soundtrack at the gym and realizing: these songs are good. Like, actually good.
Sure, they’re a little far-fetched and often absurd — that’s the point of the movie. But they’re also authentic, and that’s the point of the music. The melodies work, the harmonies are tight, and the lyrics walk that fine line between parody and sincere homage. It turns out that when actors like Michael McKean, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O’Hara write and perform their own music, it doesn’t just get a laugh — it earns your respect.
I grew up in Toronto, where Catherine O’Hara was already a legend from her SCTV days. But I also remember her sister, Mary Margaret O’Hara — a hauntingly expressive singer in her own right. I even bought her album Miss America, which was one of those records you had to grow into. Maybe that’s why A Mighty Wind hit me differently. I could feel the tribute under the parody. These weren’t just actors spoofing folk music. They got it.
The songs are genuinely well crafted. “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” doesn’t just spoof the earnestness of a 1960s love ballad — it becomes one. Played straight, performed beautifully by Levy and O’Hara as the broken-hearted duo Mitch & Mickey, it somehow manages to be funny and genuinely moving at the same time. The long pause before the kiss, the held breath of the audience — it’s all played with such delicate precision that you forget you’re watching a mockumentary. You just get swept up in it.
Even the goofier songs hold up. “Never Did No Wanderin’” is a perfect pastiche of every aimless, overly sincere folk tune you’ve ever heard — and yet it sticks in your head. “A Mighty Wind” itself is a full-blown anthem. The musicality isn’t just competent — it’s excellent. The more you listen, the more you realize: these songs would work outside the context of the film. They stand on their own.
Here’s a fun little detail: the Folksmen are Spinal Tap. Literally the same three guys — Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer — playing the same instruments, standing in the same formation. But now, instead of pounding out arena rock anthems, they’re harmonizing about freight trains and wayfaring strangers.
The name alone — The Folksmen — is almost too perfect. So generic it becomes brilliant. You could picture them on a dusty Newport Folk Festival flyer from the early ’60s, right under someone named “Slim and the Pea Pickers.”
What sells it, though, is that they don’t play it as a joke. Just like with This Is Spinal Tap, they commit completely. It’s not just a parody — it’s a performance. And the songs? They hold up.
That’s the real magic of A Mighty Wind. The satire works because it comes from a place of affection. It’s not mocking folk music — it’s playing with it. Pointing out its quirks, sure. But also celebrating its simplicity, its emotional clarity, and its sense of purpose.
I wouldn’t call myself a folk music expert, but I know what I like. My personal big four — Bruce Cockburn, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, and Gordon Lightfoot — are so far ahead of the pack that I rarely make room for anyone else. But this soundtrack found its way in. Because the songs, while meant to be funny, still carry something real. You can laugh at the lyrics and still tap your foot. You can roll your eyes at the earnestness and still feel the heart underneath it.
A Mighty Wind is a comedy, yes. But it’s also a love letter — not just to folk music, but to the idea that a good song, well played, will always land. Even if it’s technically a joke. That’s what I didn’t expect: that the music would stay with me.
And maybe that’s the best joke of all.