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Favourite Movie Soundtracks – Goodfellas

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Brogan Morris on his favourite movie soundtrack….

Picking a best of anything always causes me more anxiety than it should – it’s my personal favourite of something, and so what? Every film fan’s got one. But it feels like ‘favourite movie soundtrack’ is one I have to get absolutely right.

There are so, so many; Almost Famous appeals to the long-hair within me, nostalgic for the 70s (a decade I never actually saw) and its rock decadence; Marie Antoinette speaks to the sulky little indie kid side of me, complete as Sofia Coppola’s picture is with juicy new wave and post-punk tunes; and there’s always O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the country ‘n’ bluegrass on that being damn near perfect. Then I remember Quentin Tarantino, and I go tumbling down a rabbit hole after seven films (not Death Proof) with wonderfully eclectic soundtracks.
Goodfellas tops all of them, and any others that might challenge it for the title. I could try and claim that the fact Martin Scorsese’s gangster saga has been my favourite film since I was 12 has nothing to do with my decision, but that would be a lie; quite simply, Goodfellas would not be the same without its music. It is a crime epic by which they’ve all since been influenced, and one of its biggest legacies is its use of music.
The songs are wall-to-wall in Goodfellas, taking us on a 30-year tour of American music: crooners for the 50s, girl groups for the 60s, rock bands for the 70s, punk singers for the 80s. The film is almost a musical, with key sequences driven by rock and pop cues. And it’s not just that the soundtrack itself is good, but that the soundtrack is used so effectively.
The music alternatively makes the harsh mob pill go down easier (helping us forgive Jimmy Conway’s (Robert De Niro) homicidal intentions towards an old friend via Cream’s too-cool Sunshine of Your Love), makes proceedings more disturbing (cops discovering bodies to Derek and the Dominos’ Layla) and generally makes the violence more excruciating (Tommy (Joe Pesci) killing in slo-mo to The Drifters’ The Bells of St. Mary’s).
Best example of all is the May 1980 helicopter sequence. This uses a mixture of rock and blues, for a total of six songs mashed together. It communicates an idea – protagonist Henry (Ray Liotta) is out of his mind on drugs, his hectic life whirling even further out of place thanks to his love of cocaine. He’s sick, paranoid, losing control and now Muddy Waters is crashing into The Rolling Stones, and The Who are colliding with Harry Nilsson. We’re placed inside the thumping head of an addict, aggressive guitar medleys far away from the sweet, echoing simplicity of The Crystals or Tony Bennett.

The Goodfellas soundtrack is perfect not just because it’s so listenable in its own right, an enjoyable mix of sweet melodies and gritty rock ‘n’ roll that sounds cool coming out your speakers. Rather, the Goodfellas soundtrack is perfect because it fits, influences and enhances the tone of the film, and makes ultra-violent criminality more giddily pleasurable to watch than it has any right to be.

Brogan Morris – Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the young princes. Follow Brogan on Twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion.

Originally published May 21, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.

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