Run Laughing Through Your Fingers: Best Cream Song

Give me Boyce & Hart over Cream and Jefferson Airplane any day of the week.

Kael wrote that Goodfellas' soundtrack didn't connect to its characters' lives the way Mean Streets' soundtrack did. She's right--can't see Jimmy or Tommy settling back with Disraeli Gears and a pair of headphones--and also, I think, completely missing how perfectly matched something like "Sunshine of Your Love" is to De Niro's expression at 0:41.

I think Kael's missing the point. Soundtracks don't have to be so literal; when Karen says, "Who do you think you are, Frankie Valli or some kind of big shot?" was Kael disappointed that the soundtrack didn't play "Walk Like A Man" (or maybe play it when Henry beat up Karen's neighbor)?

Like "Sunshine" in this scene, the seemingly out-of-place "Atlantis" works because it works, not because it spells out something for us about the action or the characters (although as Scorsese later revealed, "though gods they were" did in fact relate to the characters, but not in the sense that Tommy and Henry would sit around grooving to Donovan).

Totally agree. I find pop music used imaginatively as counterpoint to be every bit as effective (and often more so) than when used literally.

Badge, all the way.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Huh Badge!? Had no idea it was that popular. Interesting choice.

Had I known noone would vote for Anyone for Tennis I'd voted for that instead. I loved when my dad played that one when I was like 6.

I said I'd note "I Feel Free" votes: two for sure, and the person who noticed its absence might have been a third. (And maybe there would have been a couple more if it had been on the list.)

Thought I'd be the only "Deserted Cities of the Heart" vote; excellent drone.

I had a feeling 'Badge' was gonna take this about 10 posts into the thread. It's a great song - classic.