“Layla – Piano Exit” by Derek & The Dominoes from “Goodfellas”
A song so hardwired into Scorsese’s conception of this sequence that he reportedly played it on set, the winsome 1970s-TV-theme-vibe of the outro (such a melodic counterpoint to the restlessness of the preceding track) must bridge vast shifts in tone and meaning in this centerpiece montage. As Henry talks about “good fellas” we go from the droll parade of bodies to Jimmy and Henry in the diner in high spirits, only to land where the track really fits, with a sense of acute nostalgia for a prelapsarian moment —the last time everything was going great— as Tommy heads out to get “made.”
At twenty entries, this list was agony to narrow down. Mostly in terms of not having every slot occupied by “Goodfellas,” we dropped the classic opening track (“Rags to Riches” by Tony Bennett) but that blaring-trumpet ramp-up, as Henry Hill slams the car trunk shut and delivers the greatest opening line of voiceover narration since “Last night I dreamed I went to Manderlay,” is inarguable. And topping the film off with Sid Vicious‘ “My Way” is similarly inspired, if just the tiniest bit more on the nose, enough to keep it off the list proper.
But the “Goodfellas” cut we’re most heartsick about leaving off is the use of Donovan‘s “Atlantis” over the scene where Billy Batts gets beaten to death by Jimmy and Tommy. The idea of using this new-agey, plaintive hippie-ish tune to accompany one of the film’s most brutal killings is such genius that we won’t blame you if you want to castigate us soundly for not including it in the comments. Go on, we deserve it.
“Casino” was looming a bit large too on the list, so we left off the great montage containing the Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” twanging away beneath Pesci’s voiceover describing how he brought in his kid brother Dominick and some desperados. And Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug” is classily used too as Ginger pays off her pimp. And in “Mean Streets” the babbly nonsense-speak of The Chips‘ “Rubber Biscuit” is used to woozily great effect over the scene of Keitel’s Charlie getting progressively more shitfaced prior to passing out.
And as for later-period Scorsese, the Human Beinz track “Nobody But Me” provides a classic Scorsese-esque accompaniment to the beatdown Leonardoo DiCaprio lays on those guys in the corner store in “The Departed”, and while it’s obviously not a Scorsese pick (and breaks the period-availability-of-the-music rule), we also wanted to call out the genius use of Kanye‘s “Black Skinhead” in the “Wolf of Wall Street” trailer, which captures the manic essence of the film without being from the film and makes the trailer terrific example of the art of the trailer all by itself.
But any Scorsese fan will have their own cherished music moments from his portfolio, and we love hearing about them, so share the ones we’ve missed with us below. We’ll check in the very second we’re done rewatching “Goodfellas” for the 600th time —promise.
—Jessica Kiang, Oli Lyttelton