Someone in the Crowd (La La Land) 2016 – Justin Hurwitz

Nearly every song in the 2016 musical La La Land is a showstopper which would explain why Someone in the Crowd is the 6th music piece to appear from the movie after the previous entry – Planetarium. The only other movie soundtrack which has featured here more is Amadeus by Milos Forman which tops my 100 favourite movies list and La La Land falling in close behind at number 7.

My least favourite genre in cinema was the musical, that is until I saw La la Land. It holds my cinema attendance record of 5 viewings. It is a superb film about the exuberance of and dedication to artistry and how romantic love, yes, even the emergence of a soul mate can intrude on that exuberance and dedication. May be I was part of a lost generation in the appreciation of the ‘musical’ and La La land acted like a portal to woosh me back to a time when cinema was grandiose. La la land represented that kind of movie they just don’t make anymore. It’s a montage of sorts of all that was great about cinema in particular 50’s Hollywood musicals. The songs are fantastic from beginning to end. It’s a wonderful family movie as well, at least for this family. My kids are as crazy for it as their Mum and Dad.

Someone In The Crowd is performed by Mia (Emma Stone) along with her flatmates, all aspiring actresses, living together hoping to make it big in Los Angeles. The girls are encouraging Mia to join them for a party they’re going to, even though she’s had a bad audition. The climax moments in this song are the pool scenes which are so wonderfully choreographed. It really is such an exhilarating production number.

This is where director Damien Chazelle and composer Justin Hurwitz (image inset) bring in the concept of musical foreshadowing – bringing in several references into what is about to happen, from serendipitous meetings to magic under the stars, all through a premonitory fate of events about to occur.
Justin Hurwitz said the following about the songwriting process of Someone In The Crowd:

“‘Someone in the Crowd’ is a big, fun production number. It’s like ‘Another Day of Sun’ in that there’s a lot going on. It’s a big orchestration. There’s a dense vocal arrangement, because all of Mia’s roommates. As I was making that vocal arrangement, I was talking to Damien about the blocking of the scene and trying to find moments between the three girls and how those lines are divided up. I say three girls because Mia is mostly a spectator of the song until she gets her own verse later on. I was thinking about where they were geographically, both in a blocking sense and a musical sense, and how you find those little pockets where their harmonies or countermelodies can come to the surface. And the orchestration, it’s just fun and jazzy. The song has a somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone to it because they’re singing about the games you have to play in Hollywood. I don’t think those girls totally believe what they’re singing but they’re also game for the process of the whole Hollywood world. The song was trying to straddle this somewhat cheeky but also nostalgic tone at the same time. It’s jazzy and it’s fully orchestral and it’s romantic, and then certainly in the second act of the song when we catch up with Mia, that’s where it becomes a more emotionally honest song. It goes from being kind of silly, like, “Let’s just put on sexy dresses and go to a party,” to a more emotional thing of Mia in the bathroom thinking about her dreams and the realities of the industry. And that’s where the arrangement collapses into just piano with some very, very light strings. The melody — which, when used as the chorus of the song, is up-tempo, exciting — becomes very sad when played slow and kind of rubato and free time. We wanted to have a song that can go from so happy, silly, excited, to so introspective and then back at the end of the song to a full-blown production number again”.

[TRACY]
You got the invitation

[ALEXIS]
You got the right address

[TRACY]
You need some medication?

[CAITLIN]
The answer’s always “yes”

[TRACY]
A little chance encounter
Could be the one you’ve waited for

[ALEXIS, CAITLIN & TRACY]
Just squeeze a bit more

[ALEXIS]
Tonight we’re on a mission
Tonight’s the casting call

[CAITLIN]
If this is the real audition
[MIA]
Oh, God, help us all

[TRACY]
You make the right impression
Then everybody knows your name

[AlEXIS & CAITLIN]
We’re in the fast lane

[ALEXIS]
Someone in the crowd
Could be the one you need to know
The one to finally lift you off the ground

[TRACY]
Someone in the crowd could
Take you where you wanna go
If you’re the someone ready to be found

[ALEXIS]
The someone ready to be found

[CAITLIN & TRACY]
Do what you need to do
‘Til they discover you

[ALEXIS, CAITLIN & TRACY]
And make you more than who
You’re seeing now
So with the stars aligned

[MIA]
I think I’ll stay behind

[ALEXIS, CAITLIN & TRACY]
You’ve got to go and find

[CAITLIN]
That someone in the crowd

[ALL]
That someone in the crowd

[MIA]
Is someone in the crowd the only thing you really see?
Watching while the world keeps spinning ’round?
Somewhere there’s a place where I find who I’m gonna be
A somewhere that’s just waiting to be found

[ALL]
Someone in the crowd could be the one you need to know
The someone who could lift you off the ground
Someone in the crowd could take you where you wanna go
Someone in the crowd could make you
Someone in the crowd could take you
Flying off the ground
If you’re the someone ready to be found

References:
1. ‘La La Land’ Composer Justin Hurwitz Details the Film’s Songwriting Process (EXCLUSIVE) – Variety