A wise philosopher...or maybe a punk kid...or maybe an astute screenwriter?...once wrote "Life moves pretty fast - if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." A new box set devoted to that iconic filmmaker - the late John Hughes - will help fans enjoy some of that life a little more through a diverse collection of pop songs he helped bring to the masses. Life Moves Pretty Fast. The John Hughes Mixtapes offers four volumes of songs from the writer/director's popular comedies and teen dramas.

Hughes, raised in the suburbs of Chicago, left an indelible, unusual mark on a generation. He was a college dropout who found success as an ad copywriter before becoming a prolific contributor to National Lampoon. His short stories were often from the perspective of kids or teens, with a real ear for how they spoke and viewed the world. In 1983, he turned his short story "Vacation '58" into the script for National Lampoon's Vacation, a blockbuster comedy starring Chevy Chase; the same year, his script Mr. Mom, about a downsized blue-collar worker who takes on family responsibilities while his wife earns for the household, was also a blockbuster.

From there, Hughes churned out an impressive spate of teen-focused screenplays, often taking the director's chair as well. Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Some Kind of Wonderful remain classics of '80s blockbuster cinema, making stars out of their fresh-faced cast members, including Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Matthew Broderick, Jon Cryer, James Spader, Lea Thompson and others.

As the '80s progressed, Hughes dabbled with more mature fare (She's Having a Baby) and silly but heartfelt comedies (The Great Outdoors, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) before settling into a lucrative niche with his script to Home Alone, a family Christmas comedy with a bizarre slapstick violence third act. None of Hughes' projects could match the sheer blockbuster force of Home Alone and its sequel, and so much of Hughes' material for the rest of his career featured kid-friendly high jinks, from Dennis the Menace and a live-action 101 Dalmatians to lukewarm leftovers like Baby's Day Out and a turgid remake of Miracle on 34th Street. Hughes, long removed from Hollywood itself, was nearly absent from the cineplex after 2000, save for a few pseudonymous story credits. His sudden death from a heart attack in the summer of 2009 prompted a wave of tributes, though contemporary audiences seem to view his work with a more critical eye thanks to some baffling racial stereotypes and gender politics that prompted even his most steadfast collaborators to reassess the work.

What cannot be denied, however, is Hughes' keen ear for music. A pop obsessive with an alternative bent, the director would often curate and solicit songs for the films himself - and while only a few of the films would have proper soundtracks (he reportedly felt some of them didn't hang together as album experiences), the list of enduring songs from his films is long. Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)," the epic closer to The Breakfast Club, topped the Billboard charts in 1985, while Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark hit the Top 10 with Pretty in Pink's dramatic "If You Leave." Ferris Bueller's needledrops included Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen," The Beat's dub side "March of the Swivel Heads," and even The Beatles' "Twist and Shout" (which climbed back up the Top 40 as a result). Even the She's Having a Baby soundtrack made minor history as the first album to feature Kate Bush's moving "This Woman's Work."

It's in that spirit that Life Moves Pretty Fast operates, collecting nearly 80 tracks from Hughes' projects in the '80s. The director's longtime music supervisor Tarquin Gotch has curated the collection with the help of Hughes' son James, even working from some of the filmmaker's personal mix tapes as featured on the cover of the package. Gotch, the younger Hughes, and Ferris Bueller himself (actor Matthew Broderick) have all penned notes and tributes for the accompanying booklet, which will also include track-by-track annotations.

The box will be available as a 4CD or 6LP set, with a double vinyl cutdown also available. A limited edition version of the 4CD set will add in a reissue of a 7" sent to members of Hughes' fan club featuring two tracks from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (which wouldn't appear on CD until decades later) as well as a Hughesian cassette featuring a selection from the box.

The set is out from Edsel on November 11. Check out the full track list below; pre-orders are still populating throughout the world as of press time.

Life Moves Pretty Fast. The John Hughes Mixtapes (Edsel EDSL0067X (U.K.), 2022)

4CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
4CD/7"/Cassette: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
6LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

* available on cassette in deluxe edition
+ available on 7" in deluxe edition (originally released as Audio Propaganda single (no cat. #), 1986)
^ available on 2LP edition

Mix 1

1. Kajagoogoo (Instrumental) - Kajagoogoo (b)
2. Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds (c) * ^
3. If You Leave - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (e) * ^
4. Weird Science - Oingo Boingo (d) * ^
5. Brilliant Mind - Furniture (g) * ^
6. She's Having a Baby - Dave Wakeling (i) * ^
7. Beat City - The Flowerpot Men (f) * + ^
8. Pretty in Pink - The Psychedelic Furs (e) * ^
9. I Go Crazy - Flesh for Lulu (g) * ^
10. Full of Love - Dr. Calculus (i) ^
11. Can't Help Falling in Love - Lick the Tins (g) * ^
12. Six Days on the Road - Steve Earle & The Dukes (h) * ^
13. You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby - Kirsty MacColl (i) * ^
14. Left of Center - Suzanne Vega & Joe Jackson (e) ^
15. Do Anything - Pete Shelley (g)
16. It's All in the Game - Carmel (i)
17. Power to Believe (Instrumental) - The Dream Academy (h)
18. This Woman's Work - Kate Bush (i) * ^
19. Elegia - New Order (e)

Mix Two

1. March of the Swivelheads - The (English) Beat (f)
2. When It Started to Begin - Nick Heyward (b)
3. Tesla Girls - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (d)
4. B.A.D. - Big Audio Dynamite (f) ^
5. Eighties - Killing Joke (d) * ^
6. Little Bitch - The Specials (b)
7. Desire (Come and Get It) (U.S. Club Mix) - Gene Loves Jezebel (i)
8. Slide - Flesh for Lulu (k)
9. Haunted When the Minutes Drag - Love and Rockets (i)
10. Love Missile F1-11 (Ultraviolence Mix) - Sigue Sigue Sputnik (f) * ^
11. Method to My Madness - Lords of the New Church (d)
12. The Hardest Walk (Single Version) - The Jesus and Mary Chain (g)
13. Bring On the Dancing Horses - Echo & The Bunnymen (e) * ^
14. Tenderness - General Public (d) * ^
15. I'm Afraid - The Blue Room (f) +
16. Round, Round - Belouis Some (e)
17. If You Were Here - Thompson Twins (b) ^
18. Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (Instrumental) - The Dream Academy (f) * ^

Mix Three

1. Oh Yeah - Yello (f) * ^
2. Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes) - Book of Love (h)
3. Try a Little Tenderness - Otis Redding (e)
4. Gloria: In Excelsis Deo - Patti Smith (b)
5. Ba-Na-Na-Bam-Boo - Westworld (h)
6. Ring Me Up - Divinyls (b)
7. Drummin' Man - Topper Headon (i)
8. Catch My Fall - Billy Idol (g)
9. Cherish - The Association (e)
10. Music for a Found Harmonium - Penguin Cafe Orchestra (i)
11. Radio People - Zapp (f)
12. Cry Like This - The Blue Room (g)
13. Mess Around - Ray Charles (h)
14. Lipstick, Powder and Paint - Joe Turner (k)
15. (Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry - Darlene Love (b)
16. How Sweet It Is (to Be Loved by You) - Marvin Gaye (i)
17. Juke Box Baby - Perry Como with Mitchell Ayres and His Orchestra & The Ray Charles Singers (k)
18. Mr. Sandman - The Chordettes (k)
19. The Peter Gunn Theme - Ray Anthony and His Orchestra (b)

Mix Four

1. Holiday Road - Lindsey Buckingham (a)
2. Back in Baby's Arms - Emmylou Harris (h)
3. Rhythm of Life - Hugh Harris (k)
4. True - Spandau Ballet (b)
5. Abuse - Here - Propaganda (g)
6. The Edge of Forever - The Dream Academy (f)
7. Lost Again - Yello (h)
8. Crazy Love - Bryan Ferry (i) ^
9. Positively Lost Me - The Rave-Ups (e) ^
10. Don't Worry Baby - Los Lobos (d)
11. Steve Earle - Continental Trailways Blues - Steve Earle (h)
12. Rev Up! - The Revillos (b)
13. More Than a Feeling - Boston (i)
14. I'll Show You Something Special - Balaam and The Angel (h)
15. Rave Up/Shut Up - The Rave-Ups (e)
16. Beaver Patrol - Pop Will Eat Itself (j)
17. Turning Japanese - The Vapors (b)
18. Red River Rock - Silicon Teens (h)

(a) from National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
(b) from Sixteen Candles (1984)
(c) from The Breakfast Club (1985)
(d) from Weird Science (1985)
(e) from Pretty in Pink (1986)
(f) from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
(g) from Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)
(h) from Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
(i) from She's Having a Baby (1988)
(j) from The Great Outdoors (1988)
(k) from Uncle Buck (1989)