Begin Again
Instead of explaining the plot, the song takes over where the plot stops.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The people who made it ⏳🌊
- ComposerGregg Alexander
After New Radicals disbanded, he turned to producing and wrote and produced most of this film's songs with his colleagues.
- DirectorJohn Carney
He wrote and directed the film, creating its premise of recording on the street.
- Lead roleKeira Knightley
She played Greta and sang the film's songs herself.
- Lead roleMark Ruffalo
He played Dan, a despondent record producer.
- StarringAdam Levine
In his first film role, he played Dave and sang the full-band version of Lost Stars.
- ProductionDanielle Brisebois
Alexander's longtime collaborator, who took part together in composing and producing the music.
I. The person who decided to rewrite music
(the pitch) around 2010, Irish director John Carney wrote a script about a record-label executive and an unknown singer-songwriter making an album on the streets of New York. The film's title was originally Can a Song Save Your Life?, changed to Begin Again just before release. (how it happened) Carney left most of the film's songs to composer Gregg Alexander, while he and Glen Hansard wrote a few themselves. Alexander had led the band New Radicals in the 1990s, and after the band broke up he turned away from the stage and toward the studio, writing and producing songs for other singers. (the team) he worked with his longtime collaborator Danielle Brisebois, lyricist Nick Southwood, and guitarist Nick Lashley. The four were credited together, under the borrowed name 'Cecil Orchestra,' for the background cues and demo tracks. (the direction) Carney's principle was simple: a song should not explain a scene, but be sung or played by a character who is actually inside it. This series has already covered the same director's Sing Street, and treating the street and impromptu recording as music's stage is a signature Carney brings to both films.
II. Open mic night
(the first song) the film opens on the open-mic stage of a bar on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Greta quietly sings a song she wrote, accompanied by nothing but a single guitar, while Dan, a drunk record producer sitting in the back of the room, listens. (hearing it twice) the same scene plays out twice. The first time through Greta's ears, raw and unfinished exactly as it sounds. The second time through Dan's ears, as he imagines bass, drums, and strings layering in one by one. The contrast of the same melody moving from a bare accompaniment to a full arrangement speaks for the two characters' first connection better than dialogue could. (the instruments) the untouched instruments left sitting on the stage each sound off inside Dan's imagination. It is a scene that shows one person recognizing another's talent through music alone, without a line of dialogue. (the attitude) Greta has no intention of dressing up her song into whatever shape the label wants. That stubbornness becomes the engine that drives the rest of the film.
A song Greta wrote and sings on the open-mic stage, capturing the moment Dan first responds to her music.
- The opening begins with nothing but a thin guitar line, giving the impression that Greta sings without any artifice.
- The same melody swells, image and sound together, the instant bass, drums, and strings layer in inside Dan's imagination.
- Keira Knightley sang the part herself, and the scene's conviction comes from leaving her unpolished pitch and breath sounds intact.
- Because this is diegetic music, played only within the story itself, it's also worth noting how the camera frames the instruments and the musicians together.
III. The street becomes a studio
(the method) instead of a recording studio, Dan and Greta turn New York's streets, rooftops, and subway platforms into one. A decision born of scarcity, made for lack of money, ends up suiting Greta's songs better than any studio could. (joining in) Dan's daughter adds guitar, and street musicians join in on the spot, so the songs come together one layer at a time. The setting earns its credibility by embracing even the noise of each location. (silence) in this stretch, it isn't the songs but the silence that does the work. In the scene where Dan hands Greta one earbud from a splitter so they can walk the night streets listening to the same song together, neither of them says a word. That silence carries more than speech could. (growing) for Dan, this street recording is a way of proving himself again after being pushed aside; for Greta, it's a confirmation that she can sing even without the lover who left her.
The song recorded on a rooftop at night in the film, where Dan's daughter Violet joins in on guitar to add a layer.
- The arrangement adds one instrument at a time heading into the chorus, mirroring the film's recording process where one person joins in at each new location.
- The deluxe edition includes the rooftop-scene version of the same song as a separate 'rooftop mix,' letting listeners compare the two.
A song from the same street-recording stretch, showing that Greta's voice can stand on its own without a large arrangement.
- Within its short runtime, it compresses the shift between verse and chorus, creating a sense of transition even with a modest arrangement.
- The mix keeps the guitar and voice closer than any strings, designed so the person comes through before the space does.
IV. The lost song
(origin) Lost Stars was originally a gift Greta wrote for her boyfriend Dave. A simple ballad written back when the two were still together, before fame. (the gift) Greta sings it alone with a guitar. A delivery that doesn't dress up the sound, as though handing over the lyrics directly, reveals that the song was once a private word meant for one person. (distortion) Dave puts the same song on his new album, arranged for a full band. Polished with synthesizers and drums to suit the radio, the version strikes Greta as having erased the grain of the words she wrote. (distance) this structure, where the same melody is split across two different arrangements, compresses the whole way this film treats music. The song is one and the same, yet whose voice carries it, and how, turns it into an entirely different statement.
V. A night at the Gramercy
(the stage) a celebration meant to mark the completion of Greta and Dan's album is interrupted by Dave's performance. At the Gramercy Theatre, Dave plays Lost Stars with his band. (two faces) this stage version, sung by Adam Levine, is a sound built for a full band, a large hall, and a big crowd. It's the same melody as Greta's bedroom version, but the scale of the sound is different. Having already heard both versions, the audience is left to confirm that difference again on the stage. (the choice) inside the venue, Greta gauges through the music where she belongs. Her expression and her distance as she listens say more than any line of dialogue could. (the afterglow) after this performance, the film shows each of them returning to their own place. The particulars of that decision are the film's to show, but the music has already set the direction.
The full-band version played by Dave's band at the Gramercy Theatre performance, where the same song is reclothed to suit the big stage.
- With synthesizers and drums added, the sound's scale and sense of space diverge sharply from the earlier version.
- Adam Levine sings by spreading the melody wide, and set side by side with Greta's shy delivery, it reveals just how differently the same song can speak.
- This version also became widely known as the single in the actual release, and most listeners who first encountered the song outside the film remember this arrangement.
VI. Begin, again
(the voicemail) midway through the film, after seeing Dave accept an award on TV, Greta is egged on by her friend Steve to sing Like a Fool and leave it on Dave's voicemail. It isn't a resolution aimed at herself but a song of resentment aimed straight at the lover who left. (the release) Greta decides to put the finished album out into the world her own way, not the way the established label would. This decision is the film's final turn, and the outcome is better seen than told. (the meaning of the title) the title Begin Again applies to both Greta and Dan. One begins love again; the other begins a career again. The two storylines cross and close around a single song. (the sound that remains) the music doesn't stop even as the credits roll. The principle that a song must be actually sung and played within the scene holds to the very end.
The song Greta, egged on by her friend Steve, sings and leaves on Dave's voicemail midway through the film, carrying resentment aimed straight at the lover who left.
- With a slower tempo and fewer instruments than the songs before it, it creates the texture of a private word passed through the phone.
- The melody's contour isn't far from "A Step You Can't Take Back," giving the impression that the voice from the opening scene has returned.
A lesser-known story
'Cecil Orchestra,' which looks like the name of a band within the film, was in fact the joint credit that Gregg Alexander and his collaborators used for the score cues and demo tracks. Going by the soundtrack cover alone, it looks as though the film's fictional musicians actually recorded the music, but a look at the album credits reveals Gregg Alexander and his collaborators standing behind that name. This detail of the production can be confirmed in the album credits. Keira Knightley had never received professional vocal training before the film. The production team is known to have wanted an unpolished tone. It was an unusual choice for music aimed at a commercial film, and this point comes up more often in reviews explaining 'why the fake debut album in the film actually sounds convincing' than in discussions of the record's own polish. New Radicals, the band Gregg Alexander had fronted, had not appeared on a public stage for twenty-two years after breaking up in 1999. He next took the stage with his former bandmates at the 2021 US presidential inauguration celebration — an event unrelated to the film's music, but one often cited alongside it to show just how long Alexander had stayed in the studio rather than on stage.
A note on terms 📚🔎
Diegetic music
(Word origin) Diegetic comes from the Greek diēgēsis, meaning 'to narrate.' The name itself carries the sense of a sound that is actually heard within the story's world. (In film and musical scoring) It refers to music that a character actually plays or turns on, so that other characters in the story can hear it too. By contrast, background music that only the audience hears, and that the characters in the story cannot, is called non-diegetic music. The radio music a teacher plays during gym class is close to diegetic, since the whole class hears it together, while the music a film quietly lays under a scene to build tension is close to non-diegetic, since only the audience hears it.
Reprise
(Word origin) The word comes from the French reprendre, 'to take up again.' The sense of picking up something that has already passed became a musical term as is. (In film and musical scoring) It refers to bringing back a song heard earlier, later in the piece, with a different arrangement or a different emotional color. Rather than a plain repeat, the same melody is often dressed in different clothes to change its meaning. It's similar to how a song first sung quietly by one person at a school festival feels completely different when the whole class sings it loudly together at the end.
Busking
(Word origin) It is widely accepted that the English busk comes from the Spanish buscar, meaning 'to seek, to look for.' The sense of searching the streets for an audience carried straight through. (In film and musical scoring) It refers to performing in front of passersby in places like the street or the subway, rather than in a formal venue. In this film, the recording itself was done on the street, bringing the immediacy of busking directly into the album-making process.
Demo
(Word origin) Short for demonstration, which comes from the Latin demonstrare, 'to show.' (In film and musical scoring) It refers to a rough version of a song recorded to sketch out its basic shape before the final recording is made. Official albums usually include only the finished version, but this film's soundtrack separately includes tracks labeled 'demo version,' letting listeners hear the unpolished sound itself. (Elsewhere) Demo is also used as a short form of demonstration in the sense of a protest, a meaning entirely unrelated to the musical demo.
Original soundtrack (OST)
(In film and musical scoring) It refers to an album collecting the songs made for, or used in, a film. Sometimes it gathers only the background music (the score), and sometimes, as with this film, the songs sung by the characters. It's the album you reach for when you walk out of a favorite movie wanting to listen to its songs on their own.
Mix
(Word origin) The English mix comes from the Latin miscere, 'to mix.' (In film and musical scoring) It refers to the work of blending various recorded sounds in a certain proportion to create the final sound, or to a different version of a song made by remixing in that way. Just as the same cooking ingredients taste completely different when the seasoning ratio changes, the same recording becomes a different-feeling song when the mix changes. (Elsewhere) Mix is also used in sports, as in a 'mixed event,' to mean something made up of different things combined together.