As we’ve seen from the very first trailer, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy‘ has an amazing soundtrack. A few weeks ago, the full track listing for album was released, but even before that fans were enjoying tunes such as ‘Hooked On A Feeling’, ‘Spirit In The Sky’, and ‘Cherry Bomb’ while Star-Lord, Gamora, Groot, Rocket, and Drax the Destroyer caused a little trouble. While many will recognize these songs as feel good hits of the 70s, it turns out that there’s a much deeper meaning behind their inclusion on Peter Quill’s Awesome Mix Vol. 1.

While speaking to Marvel.com about the importance of music to his upcoming film, director James Gunn revealed these beloved songs actually have a much deeper meaning to one of the film’s main characters:

“One of the main story points in the movie is that Quill has this compilation tape [Awesome Mix Vol. 1] that he got from his mother before she died that she made for him. It was of songs that she loved, all songs from the 1970s, and that’s the only thing he has left of his mother and that’s the only thing he has left of his home on Earth. He uses that as a connection to his past and to the sadness that he feels of having left all that and lost all that.”

In addition to Quill’s connection to this mixtape, Gunn also utilized the film’s score during filming to help his cast and crew get into the right mood for the scene. The filmmaker spoke about how and why he and composer Tyler Bates made sure the music was ready before anyone even walked on set:

“The score is also very important. I worked very hard early on with Tyler Bates, our composer, whom I’ve done three other movies with, to write part of the score ahead of time so that I’m able to use it on set for big emotional sequences and big action sequences. We can actually play the music on set and the actors can really understand where we’re going with it tonally. Our actors have a much better idea of what this film is because of the music that we use, both score and soundtrack.”

Based on Gunn’s resume, we knew that we were bound to get some surprises from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. Though the full extent of what is in store is yet to come, it’s cool to hear that the director has made it so that every detail down to the music is vital to the cinematic experience.

What do you think about the importance of music in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’? Do you plan on picking up the soundtrack when it’s released? Sound off in the comments below.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ starring Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace, Karen Gillan, Benicio Del Toro, and Michael Rooker blasts off on August 1st, 2014.