The use of songs in film can be traced back to the late 1920s. Some of the great American songwriters have had their music showcased in film including Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Harold Arlen, Michel Legrand, Randy Newman, Alan Menken, Elton John, and many others.
The art of writing a good song takes a special and refined talent. Songs are usually short and have to speak to us in a limited span of time. Although they may be considered to be simple on one level they also can convey profound and moving thoughts and images. When we consider the song we should remember that there is another important ingredient that goes into the writing of the song - and that is the lyric, which is married to the music both internally and melodically – the two share a totally symbiotic …show more content…
Back in the early days of film and theater it was enough to justify fitting a song into the production only because it was a good song. Today - writers, directors and producers want the song to have a reason for being - will the song move the story line along in a significant way and not just exist because its a nice tune. Also popular at one time were films that were built around a song or group of songs. Theses movies used either songs that were already popular in their day or would hire well known writers to compose new material. Many times, because of the movie the song became a hit on its own. Two great examples of that are the songs "Laura" written by David Raksin for the movie Laura, and "As Time Goes By" in the movie Casablanca. Actually "As Time Goes By" was already an existing song with no popularity. The producer by chance heard the song in a nightclub and thought it would work in this new movie he was making. As they say, the rest is history and the film Casablanca gave a life to "As Time Goes
The art of writing a good song takes a special and refined talent. Songs are usually short and have to speak to us in a limited span of time. Although they may be considered to be simple on one level they also can convey profound and moving thoughts and images. When we consider the song we should remember that there is another important ingredient that goes into the writing of the song - and that is the lyric, which is married to the music both internally and melodically – the two share a totally symbiotic …show more content…
Back in the early days of film and theater it was enough to justify fitting a song into the production only because it was a good song. Today - writers, directors and producers want the song to have a reason for being - will the song move the story line along in a significant way and not just exist because its a nice tune. Also popular at one time were films that were built around a song or group of songs. Theses movies used either songs that were already popular in their day or would hire well known writers to compose new material. Many times, because of the movie the song became a hit on its own. Two great examples of that are the songs "Laura" written by David Raksin for the movie Laura, and "As Time Goes By" in the movie Casablanca. Actually "As Time Goes By" was already an existing song with no popularity. The producer by chance heard the song in a nightclub and thought it would work in this new movie he was making. As they say, the rest is history and the film Casablanca gave a life to "As Time Goes