After watching Country Strong, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw, again for my Country Music Experiences project, my obsession with the movie’s soundtrack quickly came back. I love all the songs so much, particularly “Give in to Me,” “Coming Home,” and “Me and Tennessee.” It got me thinking, what are some other great country songs that came from movie soundtracks? After looking through my music, I found a lot that I love that I didn’t realize or forgot were from movies. Here are some of my favorite country songs that come from movies.
I love this song because it showcases Gwyneth Paltrow’s surprisingly amazing voice. Before seeing Country Strong, I had no idea she had such a great voice and was capable of singing a ballad like this one. It’s a beautiful song, and in the movie, it is Paltrow’s Kelly Canter’s final performance before she commits suicide. I would like the song on its own, but the context in which it is performed in the movie gives it a more special quality, because of the emotion with which Paltrow sings.
This is another song from Country Strong that I really like, and it is a duet performed by Leighton Meester and Garrett Hedlund. It is a love song, and is sung with a lot of emotion. In the movie it is the beginning of the twos’ characters finally getting together after tension throughout the whole movie, so it is a great song in the context of the movie.
This is a song released by the Charlie Daniels Band in 1979, but was also featured in the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy starring John Travolta. I have loved this song for a long time, because I grew up listening to it because my dad loves it. I had no idea it was in Urban Cowboy until we watched it in class, and that adds something to the song because I can see how people would dance to it at rodeos and dance halls.
This is a duet by Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix from the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line of a song that Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash sang often. I really like their cover of it, it is more upbeat and fun the original, and I really like Reese’s voice as June. When reading the comments on YouTube, I found that some viewers even like this movie version more than the original.
Finally, I really like Blake Shelton’s cover of Footloose from the 2011 version of Footloose. His voice is deeper than Kenny Loggins’s original recording of the song, and since Shelton is a country superstar this was a hit song. This version of Footloose is much more current and country than the original song from the 1984 movie, which makes it better in my opinion.