The Great Gatsby Soundtrack The Great Gatsby, a novel written during the roaring twenties in which many issues of that period of time were portrayed. These issues can easily be felt and understood by just reading in depth, but music can facilitate what F. Scott Fitzgerald tried to present. In the film by Baz Luhrmann, music plays a huge part in setting up the stage for the events that happened. For instance during Gatsby’s parties the music was upbeat. The film’s soundtrack suited perfectly; portraying characters, emotions, symbols, and themes. It helped the viewer not just watch the movie, but be part of it too. Although an official soundtrack for The Great Gatsby already exists, there are plenty more songs that can be added. Songs that can be included in the new soundtrack are: “Just a Dream” by Nelly, “Solo Por Un Beso” by Aventura, “Hall of Fame” by The Script feat. will.i.am, and “#thatPOWER” by will.i.am. feat. Justin Bieber. These songs represent major parts in the novel, which are the the green light, Gatsby’s power, and how one event determined his future. In the book the green light is an important symbol for Gatsby’s dreams for the future especially around Daisy, but in an even broader sense it represents the American dream. The green light is at the end of Daisy’s dock and at the end of chapter one, Nick sees Gatsby staring at it: “Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock” (Fitzgerald 21). Gatsby looks out at Daisy’s dock remembering the girl of his dreams and believes that she can still be his, but this is nothing but a dream. The real Daisy is not going to fall for Gatsby because she belongs to the old money class, and even though Gatsby has acquired wealth she is not going to be with someone outside of her social status. However, Gatsby has already perfected in his mind Daisy, but this dream Daisy does not exist. I think the song “Just a Dream” fits here because the lyrics state how the love he has for a girl is far from reality. Gatsby is not living in reality, but in a dream world he created so he might as well just look at the green light and have “Just a Dream.” Didn’t give her all my love, guess now I got my payback/Now I’m in the club, thinkin’ all about my baby/ Hey, she was so easy to love/But wait, I guess that love wasn’t enough/ This part of the song can also be put while at Gatsby's parties because it shows how he tries to look for her love at parties or clubs. It fits perfectly because Gatsby throws parties in order to find Daisy, only thinking on her, a dream. “‘I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,’ went on Jordan, ‘but she never did’” (Fitzgerald 79). I was thinkin’ ‘bout her, thinkin’ ‘bout me/ thinkin’ ‘bout us, what we gonna be/ Opened my eyes, yeah it was only a dream/ Gatsby has perfected his idea of Daisy for so long, that when he actually comes to see her again, he realizes that it couldn’t be possible, but he still attempts it. He knew Daisy wasn’t what he wanted, and ever more, he knew it wasn’t right. “‘This is a terrible mistake,’ he said, shaking his head from side to side, ‘a terrible, terrible mistake’” (Fitzgerald 87). The question is, if Gatsby knew that it wasn’t right to go back and fix the pass, why did he still attempted to do it? This book shows how the American dream has died because people no longer cared for anything except money, even Gatsby fell prey to this and that is why everything turned to filth. He just focused in one dream he had perfected for about five years.
Whenever Gatsby is around he wields tremendous authority so much so that he can do anything he wants like he owns the world. An example of this is when Gatsby and Nick and driving to New York and Gatsby gets pulled over for speeding. “‘All right, old sport,’ called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man’s