Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade: #8 – “Audition (The Fools Who Dream),” from La La Land

8. “Audition (The Fools Who Dream),” from La La Land

This is the most striking song in the film. Because it’s pure performance, and acts as the climactic moment for this character fully coming into her own. But what I love is that Chazelle does these amazing things with the other songs — the dancing on the freeway, the crazy party stuff, the early morning horizon dancing, the observatory stuff, the finale fantasy sequence — but here, he strips it all down and simply turns down the lights and lets Emma Stone shine. And while “City of Stars” is the signature song for the film and is rightly the one that won all the awards, this is the song that is the best in the film. It’s also a song that stands for all the themes in the film. “Here’s to the one’s who dream” — it’s a song for anyone who has these crazy ideas and notions and wants to follow them. It’s an amazing film moment and an amazing piece of songwriting that perfectly captures all the magic inside this film. Though admittedly — that has to be the weirdest audition ever. Someone just breaking into song and manipulating the power in the room like that. Crazy that she still got the part after all that.