Songs For The Summer
Going to Europe this summer? Hitting the beach? Looking for that summer fling? For this post I’ll suggest some film inspired songs to soundtrack your summer.
You are now entering my Cinematic Summer playlist. Welcome. We'll start with a Bach joint.
I was first introduced to this piece from its use in The Favourite. This piece to me screams champagne, European palace, garden stroll. It’s a regal intro to our cinematic summer.
You may have heard this track on TikTok and rightfully so. It’s a timeless track that seems to evoke it’s title exactly.
Percy Faith is often credited with popularizing “easy listening” as a genre. One of his most popular songs, the theme was written for the A Summer Place film, which I haven’t seen, but seems to have mixed reviews. It’ll likely remain as the theme for my summer… and yours… and everyone on TikTok’s.
A great radio hit that makes you dance and feels like summer, this track was almost NOT in the movie Footloose.
Apparently, a more somber number was originally penned for the scene in which Kevin Bacon first tries to teach Christopher Penn how to dance. During production, the director felt it wasn’t right and another song had to be written. Sometimes having pressure leads for legendary results. Let’s hear it for the boys who wrote the song!
Yes. I know — it’s Ansel Elgort. But we have to have some controversial picks on this playlist. Hear me out.
This is a sleeper on West Side Story and I, for one, enjoy Spielberg’s remake to the original film. To me, it’s one of the great songs about optimism for life and that, well, something great is coming. Good for the front-half of our playlist. Good to anticipate your epic summer.
The Pink Panther score is usually in the best film score’s of all time list… and, in my opinion, it really shouldn’t be. Don’t get me wrong, The Pink Panther theme is a brilliant piece of music, as are many of the tracks on the soundtrack. But… most of the soundtrack leans more toward source music than score music. It’s vibe setting, and great vibes at that, but it’s not really score.
That being said, it works great on our summer vibes playlist. And stay till the end, it has a wonderfully quirky ending that I always rewind to listen to again and again.
Summer romance? Hopefully it’s not like Lolita! Yikes!
Well, maybe it can be ONLY in the way of this song being used to soundtrack your romance. It’s a wonderfully nostalgic and sappy love theme that sounds like you’ve heard it a million times, even if it’s the first time you’ve heard it.
And I’m almost positive it was used as inspiration for Johnny Greenwood’s work in Phantom Thread.
A song that’s been in my rotation since I can remember (2004), this is for when you’re loving life and life’s loving you back. Take it from Mr. Incredible. Hard to feel depressed if you throw this song on.
Look who’s making it on our playlist twice! Congrats Henry!
This is a song for making TSA more bearable. This is a song for falling love with a random person on your flight. This is a song for taking off. This is a song for getting off. This is a song for our cinematic summer.
One of the best love songs of all time.
Bee Gees wrote this gem for Saturday Night Fever. It was Rock ‘n Roll manager/producer Robert Stigwood who conceived of the movie and soundtrack together after reading a (later discovered FAKE) article about working class New Yorkers flocking to late night discos. He bought the rights and made the movie happen, including requesting the Bee Gees write five songs for the soundtrack.
They wrote: How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin' Alive, Night Fever, More Than a Woman, and If I Can't Have You. Reportedly they knocked out all five of these songs in a single long weekend… C’mon!
So too can you run around a forest like Robin Hood and Little John this summer.
Burt Bacharach wrote a lot of amazing songs, it’s inspirational. And his score for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is also very unique and innovative. But this song is the one that made it onto the list. It’s the perfect carefree song. And it has great trumpet solo where you do tricks on your bike, like Paul Newman did in the movie.
I haven’t seen The King and I in full in years. I have fond memories of watching it in middle school music class. This song has been a nostalgic, pretty one that stuck with me all of these years. If memory serves, the movie (and play) is basically a quasi-racist version of The Sound of Music. So do with that what you will, but this song slaps. I’m pretty sure Leland sings it in Twin Peaks when he starts going crazy too.
Another controversial pick. Yeah, from a Woody Allen movie. But let’s just say it’s from Funny Face or just a great, classic Gershwin song. I just happen to really enjoy this version, and think it works well for our summer soundtrack.
My old roommate showed me this track. It’s a pretty one, apparently from the end credits of Monty Python and The Holy Grail.
It wasn’t composed specifically for the film. Instead, it comes from De Wolfe Music, one of the biggest and best music libraries in the biz. I love library music and wrote a separate post about it a while back. In fact, a lot of this playlist has that “easy listening” library music sound of the 50’s-70s.
This might be one of my favorite songs of all time… I never get tired of listening to this drum part. I gushed over it a bit in my chat with Deron Johnson. He was the one who tipped me off that it was originally written for a movie, The Spook Who Sat By The Door.
Now you can feel like your summer late night drives and spontaneous airport boarding are all part of some grand conspiracy you’re looking to unearth.
Another easy listening track, but this time incorporating the iconic theme from Taxi Driver. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find much about this version of the song, or why it was created. If anyone knows anything more I’d be curious to learn.
It also happens to be the theme song for Between Two Ferns.
My favorite movie musical! It’s the track from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory that gives me the lust for life that is embodied in summer. Sing along, I’m sure your voice will be more in tune than the kid who plays Charlie… ;)
Not from a movie, but inspired by Disney movies. It’s a nice, bittersweet track as we near the end of the playlist. It’s also probably my favorite Beach Boys song.
The music supervisor on Shrek changed the world.
And to end our glorious playlist we have this beautifully triumphant finale. Written by French Composer Georges Delerue for Day For Night, which I still have yet to watch, I ended up first hearing this song in the great speech scene from Fantastic Mr. Fox. What a great way to go out!
Have a summer to remember! And here’s the full playlist to soundtrack:
will dinola (he/him) is a film composer, musician, and writer currently working in new york city
he is interested in people’s passions and pushing the art of film scoring to new horizons
he writes about his experience in a newsletter called “do”
