“The Hardest Geometry Problem in the World” is arguably the most beloved piece of original film music to hit the world in the last decade (or three). You may not recognize the name, but the mischievous baroque tinkling of the tune would be immediately familiar if you heard it played. Perhaps you’d even begin to picture the scene it underscores: the opener of Rushmore, during which main character Max Fischer daydreams about solving the eponymous math challenge after some lightning-speed blackboard scribbling. It’s the moment that sucks viewers into the film—and, for many, into the entire oeuvre of director Wes Anderson—and the song has a lot to do with that: The melody itself practically bursts with excitement and enthusiasm about what’s to come. The musical wizard behind this captivating passage: Mark Mothersbaugh, lead singer of the influential New Wave band Devo and the indefatigable Hollywood composer whom Anderson has tapped for all his films.

Mothersbaugh’s rich and unusual career began when he and fellow Kent State studio art major Jerry Casale founded Devo in the early ’70s after witnessing the murder of four students by the National Guard during the infamous Vietnam War protest. Searching for an effective method to expose the rampant consumerism and conformity they saw in America, they created their songs in tandem with short films that illustrated their lyrics, anticipating MTV by over half a decade. And when the music network launched in August of 1981, a number of Devo movies became the channel’s first videos. In the process, Devo scored a major hit with “Whip It”—and MTV, a channel designed to appeal to the masses, helped popularize a group that encouraged listeners to rethink the mob mentality.

Mothersbaugh has since written songs for more than a hundred television shows and movies, including Pee Wee’s Playhouse, The Rugrats Movie, and The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald: The Visitors from Outer Space, as well as a number of jingles—though he never misses an opportunity to adulterate. He’s suggested that it’s “entirely possible” he’s embedded the words “Sugar is bad for you” into a cereal commercial; and he has admitted to sneaking the phrase “Question Authority” into a kids’ show tune. “People are all hiding something,” Mothersbaugh claims on his web site. And while that statement certainly seems to apply to a man who plants secret messages in his music, Mothersbaugh is a refreshingly candid conversationalist. When I caught up with him, he was driving to a pre-screening of one of his latest collaborations, Herbie: Fully Loaded.

—Maura Kelly

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