In one scene a character plays their “Straight Shooter” on a piano, and elsewhere actors portray Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot. Jose Feliciano, “California Dreamin’” (1968): The Mamas and the Papas, the Laurel Canyon quartet that so embodied the sunny air of the era despite their own inner-band turmoil, are a recurring motif in the movie. It’s not as much for the lyrics as for the aural experience.” There were a few other things we tried for that slot, but this one stuck. “Margot conveys sweetness and openness, and that scene is a lovely montage of Sharon’s sweetness and her inner life. “It’s a cool moment for Sharon Tate,” she says. “So when you’re getting ready to put them in the film, there’s quite a hefty bill for vinyl to get slightly better copies.”īuffy Saint-Marie, “The Circle Game” (1967): The Native American folk singer’s cover of the Joni Mitchell song is wedded to a carefree scene with Tate. “A lot of times, some of the records Quentin had weren’t so pristine,” she laughs. Ramos says at least part of her budget went to buying better copies of that vinyl in Tarantino’s stash. “That was a record in Quentin’s collection.” “It’s such a great dancing song, and it’s not that easy to find,” says Ramos. The Buchanan Brothers, “Son of a Lovin’ Man” (1969): Heard in a party scene set at the Playboy Mansion, this adult-bubblegum deep cut wasn’t made by actual brothers but by a trio of singer-songwriter-producers (two of whom went on to form the folk-pop duo Cashman and West). “It’s a cool, creepy song,” she says, “and it matches the moment perfectly.” The Raiders were chosen for a specific historical reason: “Terry Melcher, who was Doris Day’s son, was their producer, and he lived in the Cielo Drive house and had a connection to the Manson family.” “Hungry” is featured in a scene in which Tate (played by Margot Robbie) meets Manson for the first time. “We hear Sharon say, ‘Don’t tell Jim Morrison you’re dancing to the Raiders!’ They never had the coolness vibe of bands like the Doors, but they were a good pop band.” “It just made sense that they were there,” says Ramos. Paul Revere and the Raiders, “Hungry” (1966): For a brief period, this Northwestern band rocked the organ and the Revolutionary War outfits and embodied an American Invasion pop-garage sensibility. So it was emotional when his representative got word that we wanted to use it and said, ‘This is going to mean so much to his family.’” One of the writers of ‘Treat Her Right’ was only recently given his rightful credit on the song. “He’s done that with songwriters and recording artists too. “A lot of times Quentin will revive somebody’s career who hasn’t been doing much recently,” says Ramos. The usage of the song had a happy ending all its own. You always look for something that’s going to hit the audience and start things off with a bang and prepare the audience for what they’re about to see. I’m really glad Quentin chose to use it where he did.
Roy Head and the Traits, “Treat Her Right” (1965): The pumped-up white-soul hit opens the movie and, says Ramos, is there for a reason: “It definitely pertains to the movie and the characters.
The Hollywood soundtrack features plenty of classic-rock types (the Rolling Stone, Bob Seger, Neil Diamond), but we asked Ramos to dig into some of the deeper-cut moments in the film. He wanted to stay very specific to the period.” “He was a bit more anachronistic with this. “Nothing later than 1969, some things from before,” Ramos says. Although they were approached by several name acts to record covers or – in the case of Lana Del Rey – offer up their own material, Tarantino stuck with his time-capsule idea.
For his poetic-license retelling of the intersection of Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, the Charles Manson posse, and fictional actors played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, Tarantino didn’t want any of the music heard in the film to go beyond one year (1969, when the film is set). The major difference with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was the time frame. “In the past, when we’ve started preparation,” she says, “he invites me over and I madly scribble as he’s talking a mile a minute and pausing to put the needle down on records. What Ramos describes as Tarantino’s “record room” looks like a vinyl boutique, with LPs separated into bins labeled by genres like soul and soundtracks. According to Mary Ramos, Quentin Tarantino’s longtime music supervisor, the process for selecting songs for one of his films starts in a record store-which happens to be in his Hollywood home.