#LA LA LAND SOUNDTRACK YOUTUBE MOVIE#
All of the other songs in the movie we approached more like musical theater songs. Maybe Sebastian could be swayed into doing this."
It was really one of the first things you hear that got locked into the movie.ĭC: It had to be a good song. It was the first lyric that Pasek and Paul wrote too, actually. When I picked the movie back up and went back to the piano, it was the first thing I tackled. JH:, Damien and I called it "The Yearning." We knew we wanted to use it again for the fantasy scene at the end of the film, so it was a very important melody, and one we knew we had to work out. Those two songs had a certain effortlessness in their conception that I think makes them a little extra emotional. There’s a simple purity to what they do, and how they sound, and also what they need to do. I shouldn’t say easiest-but they went through the fewest drafts.
The main theme was already locked in, so the next thing I moved onto was the song that became "City of Stars."ĭC: is probably either the audition song or "City of Stars." Ironically, both of those songs were maybe the easiest to write. We put the movie down for a couple of years to work on Whiplash, but early, early on we had a package of songs, and some ideas. It was one of the first ones I approached.
JH: Damien and I had a sense that would be an important song. "City of Stars"-a sentimental duet performed by Gosling and Stone as their characters fall in love-is one of the most memorable songs in the film, and the centerpiece of La La Land*'s buzzy promotional campaign.* And it shows! There are no piano doubles in this movie. JH: Ryan was in piano lessons six days a week, for a couple of hours a day, and practicing more hours on his own. I knew they could thread the tonal needle the movie needed. There was something very glamorous and old Hollywood about that-but when it comes to Ryan and Emma, incredibly modern. You used to see Bogey and Bacall, or Hepburn and Tracy, or Fred and Ginger in repeated pairings. And Ryan and Emma brought such a perfect, grounded authenticity to it.ĭC: I was just so in love with them-not just as performers individually, but the idea that they bring, as a pair, the idea of old Hollywood. We like singers and performers that feel like real people. We’re not huge fans of belting, and vibrato, and some of those techniques, which can sometimes put a distance between the audience and the performer. JH: Damien and I-we like musicals that feel grounded in some way. It can’t be a bad song-but it also has to make us feel a little uncomfortable." And as they’re unfolding, I’m thinking about how I can take it to a new place melodically or harmonically-or taking us into major, or repeating a motif but having it dip into minor. I tend to compose what are called "through-composed" melodies-meaning melodies that don’t loop back on themselves. JH: When I’m composing at the piano, I’m trying to sort of let a melody unfold in a way that takes us on a bit of a narrative journey. He likes to complain about how I put him through the ringer, so… Yeah, that’s probably about right. There was the main theme, and then I moved on to other themes, and some of them became songs, and some of them became score themes.ĭC: Yeah, he’s probably not exaggerating. JH: I did a little over 1,900 piano demos on this movie, between all the different themes. Some of this stuff is so hard to describe, and is so personal, so I never knew for sure if anyone else would respond to a melody I responded to in the same way. It would make me want to tap my foot with joy, or want to cry, or just give me goosebumps. DC: It was a very personal thing, when I heard a melody that I fell in love with.