There I was, minding my business, picking up some groceries when the background music in the store came into focus and I recognized the strains of Eric Clapton’s Layla playing softly in the background.And immediately what popped into my head wasn’t what I’d be making for dinner tonight, nope, instead it was the image of poor, stupid, Frankie Carbone dead in a meat locker.
Martin Scorsese famously used this classic rock song in his 1990 gangster picture , Goodfellas, and I’m sure that I’m not the only one who can’t hear the song without thinking about the movie. And it didn't matter that Clapton and Jim Gordon’s creation has a well documented life outside of Scorsese’s film, in my (admittedly movie addled mind) the two will forever be linked.
The pairing of the perfect song in the perfect scene does something more than provide some background noise. The right combination elevates the song and the movie, or in some cases, the song fills in a layer of meaning or emotion into the scene. A combination that becomes something bigger than the sum of it’s parts -- and that’s pretty freaking cool if you ask me.
So for this installment of The List, I've provided some of my most memorable song and movie partnerships...
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