Movie songwriting scenes

December 27, 2024 1:09 PM

I love scenes in movies where musicians put a song together on the spot. What are some good examples?

I love seeing the songwriting process in action. You know: start with this bit, add a little of that there, take that bit out, add a little more--and boom, there's your song. More about the assembly than the actual recording. There was one in Respect, and I remember another in Hustle and Flow. Real songs preferred, fictional OK too.

posted by gottabefunky to Media & Arts (37 answers total)

You might enjoy the scene from Amadeus where Mozart spontaneously composes a variation on the little "march of welcome" that Salieri composed as a gift to him.
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 1:17 PM on December 27 [7 favorites]

Here is a great real one: Chris Martin for Dick Van Dyke starting towards the end of this video at 5:35 (though the whole video is lovely)
posted by ojocaliente at 1:31 PM on December 27 [4 favorites]

I swear I’ve seen a great one of these with Lennon and McCartney recently but can’t for the life of me remember what they were writing or where the clip was from, but I guess most likely the Get Back documentary series.
posted by penguin pie at 1:42 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]

Yep, here’s Paul writing “Get Back”
posted by TwoWordReview at 1:43 PM on December 27 [3 favorites]

Ishtar | Telling the Truth Can Be Dangerous Business
posted by SNACKeR at 1:46 PM on December 27 [6 favorites]

Thanks, TwoWordReview, that’s great - I don’t think it was the clip I’d seen (which I think was earlier, and with both of them working more together), but I’m guessing Get Back is probably full of them.
posted by penguin pie at 1:58 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]

This is basically what the romcom Music and Lyrics is about. It is not the world's best movie but it does have a lot of charm.
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:58 PM on December 27 [3 favorites]

Music store scene, “Once.”
posted by baseballpajamas at 2:01 PM on December 27 [6 favorites]

There are a few fictional little snippets in Grace of My Heart, like this or this.

Or this clip of Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff writing the bridge of “Getaway Car”
posted by bcwinters at 2:09 PM on December 27 [2 favorites]

Here's the song "Up" from Sing Street, which has a fun seamless segue from the band's two songwriters working it out to the whole band practicing it.
posted by indexy at 2:20 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]

if I may suggest an even better one from Amadeus - this scene at the end where he’s dictating the Requiem from his bed

can’t find the right clip - but aren’t they writing a song immediately before Good Morning in Singing in the Rain?
posted by rd45 at 2:31 PM on December 27 [4 favorites]

There was that totally random songwriting scene in Slingblade (not real).
posted by mermaidcafe at 2:33 PM on December 27

It's been awhile since I've seen it, but I'm fairly certain the movie Hearts Beat Loud has at least one scene of the main characters composing a song together realtime. (Collaborating on music together is a thing that pervades the entire movie, but it's not 100% explicit musicians-putting-together-songs-on-the-spot scenes.)
posted by rhiannonstone at 2:44 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]

Spontaneous lunch room song in Fame.
posted by less-of-course at 2:49 PM on December 27 [3 favorites]

The Thing Called Love is all about songwriting.

I think there were some in the Runaways movie.
posted by mermaidcafe at 2:49 PM on December 27

There was a scene in the movie “Rocket Man” where Elton John basically came up with the music to “Your Song” on the fly and (mostly) in whole after being handed the freshly written lyrics by Bernie Taupin. I dunno if that’s how it actually happened, though.

Also the aforementioned Beatles “Get Back” movie had many scenes of George working out early versions of songs that eventually tweaked lyrics. Also notable is when Billy Preston came in and assisted. I kinda wonder if Let It Be would have been finished if he hadn’t shown up, or how different it would have been to what we know now.
posted by kabong the wiser at 3:19 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]

OK, I know this isn't quite what you're looking for, but in case it's of interest: a lovely real-world example is Angelo Badalamenti describing how David Lynch and he collaboratively composed a famous Twin Peaks theme with a direct, in-room collaboration like this.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:23 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]

Not song writing specifically so this might not scratch your itch, but just in case: The Studio Jams YouTube channel has videos of different groups of musicians collaborating on and rehearsing arrangements for existing songs. In some videos they then perform the piece all the way through, in other cases the rehearsal videos - marked "(rehearsal)" - are separate from the performance videos.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:19 PM on December 27

It's a bit of a stretch, but you see the songwriter in Rear Window slowly compose "Lisa's Theme" over the course of the movie.
posted by Lemkin at 4:46 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]

Alexander's Ragtime Band
posted by Rash at 5:48 PM on December 27

Mozart spontaneously composes a variation on the little "march of welcome" that Salieri composed as a gift to him.

The variation is of course Non più andrai from the Marriage of Figaro and a smashing good tune.
posted by jokeefe at 6:43 PM on December 27 [2 favorites]

OK, it's not a movie, but this happens multiple times in every episode of Nashville, which I'm currently binge-watching. That's 6 seasons' worth of drama and songwriting!

Also, just about every country or folk biopic movie and series has this. George & Tammy, Sweet Dreams, Walk the Line, Grace of My Heart, Ken Burns' Country Music, Mike Judge's Tales from the Tour Bus, A Star Is Born...

I also love the Netflix reality show Rhythm + Flow, which depicts this from a hip-hop perspective. I think there was a bit of this in Bohemian Rhapsody as well, and Sing Street, Selena, The Wrecking Crew! documentary, Yesterday, Get On Up, The Runaways, 8 Mile, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, What's Love Got to Do With It, A Beautiful Life... I can't remember any specific songwriting scenes from Elvis, but there might have been some!
posted by limeonaire at 6:47 PM on December 27

In the U2 documentary From the Sky Down, you can actually watch the song One come into being from the moment of its inception.
posted by platinum at 8:03 PM on December 27

Also check out Flora and Son, it has this. Another charmer from John Carney.
posted by miles1972 at 10:20 PM on December 27

Saving Me Banks about the making of Disney 's Mary Poppins has lots of scenes about writing music.
posted by brookeb at 10:53 PM on December 27

In Godard's film “Sympathy for the Devil” you can see The Rolling Stones work through the title song.
posted by pasici at 6:32 AM on December 28

There are several of these scenes in School of Rock and they're all delightful.
posted by merriment at 8:44 AM on December 28

There's a scene in Walk the Line where Johnny Cash works out "Folsom Prison Blues" while stationed in West Germany. The scene is apocryphal; he actually lifted most of it from the song "Crescent City Blues" from a Gordon Jenkins album.
posted by hydrophonic at 10:18 AM on December 28 [1 favorite]

Platinum Hit was a short-lived reality competition show about songwriting and I still remember it fondly. The series is available on YouTube.
posted by Threeve at 10:30 AM on December 28 [1 favorite]

Bohemian Rhapsody has a few scenes of this, but I wouldn’t recommend the movie (and those scenes are probably entirely fictional anyway)
posted by ejs at 12:11 PM on December 28

Ah yeah, I should clarify, for my recommendations, I care much less about historical accuracy and much more about inspiration. I love seeing people doing the thing, even if it's not exactly how it actually went.
posted by limeonaire at 4:29 PM on December 28

the Clash film Rude Boy has several legit scenes like this. Mostly partial; we never see a song crafted from beginning to end.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:56 PM on December 29

Walk Hard has a scene that, like much of the film, is both a great example of this and a parody of it at the same time.

Ray has a similar 'coming together in the studio' scene that's great.

The Boys, the documentary about the Sherman Brothers and their collaborations on Walt Disney films is terrific, and there's a fun dramatization of one of their songs coming together in the movie Saving Mr. Banks (and another scene featuring them at work, including a deleted scene.)
posted by Inkslinger at 2:40 PM on December 29

It's a real event and not a movie, but I also enjoyed watching Ben Folds compose a piece for an orchestra live at the Kennedy Center.

Pianist Charlie Albright does similarly magical things in concert, improvising sonatas based on notes suggested by the audience.

Oh, and back to films, there's the scene in Yesterday featuring Ed Sheeran and a songwriting contest where one of the contestants comes up with an original song and the other decidedly does not.
posted by Inkslinger at 2:48 PM on December 29

In “The Doors” movie, here’s a scene where they play “Light My Fire” for the first time (the second half of this short clip).
posted by Don_K at 9:12 AM on December 30

It's been a long time, but IIRC there's a scene or two like this in American Pop.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:45 PM on December 30

A Complete Unknown, the new Bob Dylan movie, has a few too-short snippets of the writing process. I’d have enjoyed seeing more - but obvs the movie is more about his evolution away from the folk idiom than it is about specific songs.
posted by rd45 at 8:49 AM on December 31