Tunes for Tuesday: “City of Stars”, from La La Land

In honor of La La Land basically owning the Golden Globes this past weekend, today’s Tune for Tuesday is the winner of Best Original Song: “City of Stars”.

Apparently, La La Land is really, really good. Now, we could have deduced that from the fact that it has a Certified Fresh rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a glowing Critics Consensus praising the performances and the direction of the film. However, the Golden Globes also took place last weekend.

La La Land took home seven awards, including one for Best Original Song. With all that in mind, it only seems fitting to make that Best Original Song the Tune for Tuesday. (Sorry, other nominees, which include “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana. Maybe next week.)

Now, technically speaking, there are multiple versions of this song, including one with just Ryan Gosling:

Here’s “City of Stars,” in full duet form, from the La La Land soundtrack:

For a movie that’s so brightly and deeply colored, this song is actually kind of quiet in both forms. It picks up a little bit about midway through in the duet, but even then it doesn’t sound like one of the big musical numbers. One wonders why something like “Another Day of Sun“, which has dominated all the ads for the movie, didn’t get the nod instead. That’s not to knock “City of Stars”, but it’s curious all the same. In fact, even the Oscars won’t consider “Another Day” for its Best Original Song nominees.

Anyway, “City of Stars” starts off lyrically by addressing Los Angeles, or, more specifically, Hollywood, asking why it shines so brightly and for whom it’s shining. The solo version ends up being more wistful overall. Of course, that quickly turns into a song about yearning for love, even among the bright lights. Notably, the duet preserves the laughter and hesitation of its two main characters, Mia and Sebastian, since this song takes place early on in the film, just as the love story begins.

Justin Hurwitz wrote the music; Benj Pasek and Justin Paul handled the lyrical duties.

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The entire La La Land soundtrack is out now via Interscope Records.