Today, we count down the top fictional hit songs written for movies.
This is Top Five, where I rank certain pieces of pop culture.
There have obviously been a number of hit songs written for movies, but most of the songs exist outside the actual plot of the movie. For instance, “Take My Breath Away” is not a song that actually exists within the universe of Top Gun. It’s just a song that gets played when stuff happens in the movie.
Occasionally, the songs written for the film are meant to exist in the film’s story, but often, in those instances, too, the film doesn’t make a commentary one way or the other about whether the songs are hits. For instance, when Tom Frank plays “I’m Easy” in Nashville, there is no commentary on whether the song was a hit or not. That was the case for pretty much every old film that had characters performing songs within the films, like “Chattanooga Choo Choo” in Sun Valley Serenade. It’s just a song. There’s no statement about whether it is a hit or not (even though the song, of course, was a big hit in real life)…
This makes sense to me, as if you say your songs are hits within the fictional universe, you’re putting yourself in a position where the song BETTER BE GOOD then, or else you lose the believability of the story. For instance, in Once, we have to believe that the guy’s music actually IS good, so when he starts to play a song for the girl in the film, it is very important that the song be actually good, and it was, well, “Falling Slowly,” so they succeeded. But that’s very hard to do (and they weren’t even pretending that that song was a hit song!). Here, then, are my picks for the top five songs written for films that are fictional hit songs within the universe of the film.
HONORABLE MENTION: “Husavik” from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (written by Fat Max Gsus, Rickard Göransson, and Savan Kotecha) is a good song in the mold of a typical Eurovision-winning song…
HONORABLE MENTION: “Evergreen (Love Song from A Star is Born)” is weird, because A Star is Born doesn’t actually show us WHY Esther has become such a big star in the film, so we don’t even really know if “Evergreen” was a big hit in-universe, while it was a huge hit in real life. So I can’t quite bring myself to putting it in the top five. It’s not even the song she plays at the benefit concert that makes her a star (like “Shallow” later was in the 2018 version of the film)
The song was written by Barbra Streisand and Paul Williams.
HONORABLE MENTION: “Lost Stars” from Begin Again. I won’t front, I don’t even like this song, but I like the movie, Begin Again, so much that I felt like I should share the hit song from within the film universe (despite me liking the other songs in the film so much better).
Adam Levine played a douchey, but ultimately harmless, pop singer really well in the film, even if his scenes were my least favorite part of the movie (just watch the movie. It’s good). The song was written by Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois (yes, it’s the same Daniell Brisebois that was a child actor), Nick Lashley and Nick Southwood.
HONORABLE MENTION: My friend Alex noted that the hit song that Hugh Grant’s character had in the 1980s in Music and Lyrics was a good one (well, he noted all of the music, but that’s the one I’m spotlighting here). Andrew Wyatt and Alanna Vicente really nailed the feel of a 1980s hit with “Pop Goes My Heart”…
HONORABLE MENTION: My pal Chris suggested “Fever Dog” by Stillwater in Almost Famous. I didn’t think Stillwater was yet famous enough to have a hit song in the film (hence the whole “it’s a think piece about a mid level band struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom”), but it IS a really cool song, so sure, here it is!
It was written by Nancy Wilson (who was married to Cameron Crowe, the writer/director of the movie, at the time).
HONORABLE MENTION: My friend Sam reminded me that “Everything Is Awesome” is a hit song within the world of The Lego Movie, so of course I had to feature that!
The song was written by Shawn Patterson, JoLi and the Lonely Island.
HONORABLE MENTION: My friends Ray and Laura recommended “On The Dark Side,” from Eddie and the Cruisers, the big hit of the fictional band in the movie (actually performed by the real life band, John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown band). That’s a great example. Thanks, Laura!
The song was written by John Cafferty, who ultimately ended up scoring the whole film.
HONORABLE MENTION: This one is crazy, because I’m not a huge fan of “You Light Up My Life,” but, I mean, come the heck on, You Light Up My Life was a movie about a struggling songwriter (Didi Cohn) who finally has a hit with the song “You Light Up My Life” (Kvitka “Kasey” Cisyk sang the song in the film, with Cohn lip-synching)…
And then the song becomes one of the biggest hits of the 1970s! How cool is that? I couldn’t not feature it! Joseph Brooks wrote it.
5. “I Have Nothing”
Obviously, The Bodyguard is best known for “I Will Always Love You,” which wasn’t written for the film, and the fact that “I Have Nothing” is very much “the other song” in the film, I can’t rank it higher, despite it being an excellent song. Whitney Houston makes everything so much better.
It was written by David Foster and Linda Thompson. Jud Friedman and Allan Rich’s “Run to You” is also really good, but how can the third best song from the film make the overall top five?
4. “The Weary Kind”
Crazy Heart is fascinating because it’s not that great of a movie, but Jeff Bridges is SO FREAKIN’ GOOD IN IT that it makes the movie much better than it should be. In any event, there is a recurring bit about how Bad Blake (Bridges’ character) has this song that he thinks will be his way back to stardom. However, in the end, we see that he has instead sold the song to his protégé, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell). It is a huge hit and Blake is now a successful songwriter. So the song really needs to actually be good for the film to make sense, and, well, “The Weary Kind” REALLY is excellent.
Ryan Bingham and T. Bone Burnett wrote it.
3. “That Thing You Do!”
Again, the film That Thing You Do! depends on their hit song being a hit song, and the film pulls it off well with a catchy 1960s-style pop song for the title track.
The late, great Adam Schlesinger (who was a hell of a songwriter) wrote the tune. Mike Viola did the vocals (Johnathon Schaech lip-syched).
2. “Shallow”
The 2018 A Star is Born did a much better job of showing Lady Gaga’s Ally become a legit superstar, and the peak, naturally, was the song “Shallow,” written by Lady Gaga, Andrew Wyatt, Anthony Rossomando and Mark Ronson.
It’s rare to see a song land this well. Again, it’s really hard writing songs PERIOD, but to write a song for a movie where the song has to be good for the movie to work? And then DOING it? That’s just amazing to me.
1. “New York, New York”
My friend Danny reminded me that unlike their other classic musicals, John Kander and Fred Ebb also had a movie musical, New York, New York, where the songs in the film were actual songs, and the title track, “New York, New York,” as performed by the star of the movie, Liza Minnelli, is what solidifies the stardom of her character in the film (it’s interesting because her ex-husband is who wrote the music for the song in the film, so by combining their talents, she had her greatest success, even after their personal relationship was over).
The song is obviously more known for the Frank Sinatra cover, but whatever version of the song, it is an amazing song, and one that people will definitely remember 100 years from now in a way that these other songs don’t have that same timelessness to them…
Thanks, Danny, for the reminder!
Okay, those are my picks! Agree? Disagree? Let me know! And feel free to write to me at brian@poprefs with suggestions for future top fives!
“On the Dark Side”
Did I miss where you ranked On the Dark Side from the movie Eddie and the Cruisers?
The movie was a total flop and yet the song remained in heavy rotation on oldies rock stations for decades.
Hard to be a bigger fictional hit than that song.
I see three “Honorable Mentions” and the number one song. Where are the other four? I think you’re missing some subheads.
I love Shallow and especially that moment in the film, but That Thing You Do! is still definitely number one for me. Feels like they play it 5 times in the movie and it never gets old. (And then I bought the soundtrack.)
I remember Siskel and Ebert saying “That Thing You Do” had to have been a real challenge to write: It has to sound like a 1960s song that could plausibly be a smash hit, but not sound too good because the band clearly aren’t Beatles-class talent. I think it succeeded.
I won’t say I disagree with your picks, because I haven’t actually seen most of the movies your choices came from, but two of my favorite “fictional hits” in movies are:
*”Christmas Is All Around,” a holiday novelty version of The Troggs’ real world hit “Love Is All Around,” as performed by Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) in “Love Actually”
*”A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow,” which was a ’60s folk hit for Mitch & Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara) in the universe of “A Mighty Wind.”
How about “God Give Me Strength” from Grace of My Heart?
I have a place in my heart for Spinal Tap’s “Big Bottom”. Don’t know if it was heard much outside the movie.
I think any of the songs from “A Mighty Wind” could earn an honorable mention. All of these songs were hits within the reality of the movie, so they had to be good folk songs anyway, and I think the writers (mostly Guest perhaps?) did an amazing job of evoking the feeling of old folk music.
No list like this is complete without Stand Up and Shout, by Steel Dragon, in the movie Rock Star. Great movie, killer soundtrack.