Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade: #46 – “Genius Girl,” from The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

46. “Genius Girl,” from The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

Definitely the one no one was expecting on here. This is probably the only song in the top 50 (maybe there’s one more) that almost nobody could have called. I’ve said it a lot that I’m not a Noah Baumbach fan and that I find his films cold, with unlikable characters (except when they’re written and performed by Greta Gerwig), but this song is one of the few really beautiful moments I’ve found in his work. It’s just a nice moment with Adam Sandler and Grace Van Patten at the piano. A father and daughter singing a song they wrote together when she was a kid. It’s really the chorus that blows me away. It’s a simple, beautiful song that most importantly gets performed in the movie and is one of my favorite musical film moments in film from this decade.