or to rephrase the question, what would you like to have on the soundtrack?

It'd be a musical, naturally. William Finn would write an original score, and we'd all break the 4th wall and siiiiing sing sing.

And there'd be big NYC dance numbers- the cliche ones you see where the cab drivers and the tourists and the homeless people and the businessmen all link arms and dance around the fountain in Central Park.

A few that come to mind:

Seal Eyeing - Animal Collective
A King and Queen - Okkervil River
Golden Brown - The Stranglers

A lot of people wearing flannel. Nirvana. Pearl Jam.

Something Scorsese-esque-wildly varying on paper, yet perfect.

Compulsory inclusions:

Bobby 'Blue' Bland - Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City
Roy Buchanan - The Messiah Will Come Again
Dictators - Borneo Jimmy
Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
Steve Perry - Strung Out
Willie Bobo - Fried Neckbones & Some Home Fries
Triumph - Follow Your Heart
Merle Haggard - Swinging Doors
Motorhead - I'm So Bad, Baby I Don't Care
John Prine & Iris DeMent - In Spite Of Ourselves

I hope it's a lot of minimalists for the serious parts, Tan Dun for anything the minimalists don't cover, Phil Ochs for the righteous parts, and Motown girl groups for everything else.

This is a really cool question that I'm not sure I can answer! I'll have to think about this!

(Lulz, parts of what I already have in mind for the Survombie soundtrack, sad as that sounds, would work since a lot of snippets are yanked from my life and put in there because I suck at imagining normal things.)

Probably my theme song would be on it. (I like to think of my theme song as being this but everyone else has always voted it as being this.)

And I wish I was badass enough for this.

How Soon Is Now -- The Smiths.

Mmmm, JanetLand, me too!

Perhaps not a particularly coherent score, sue me... Also in the first act:

Lake of Fire, Smells Like Teen Spirit
16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six


The later parts would get more sappy and positive:
Chain of Love
Across the Universe

Just about anything by Radiohead. I would settle for the entire album OK Computer, but my life isn't nearly as bleak as all that.

After something really shitty happens to me and I rebuild my life, parts of Pink Batman by Dan Deacon will play during that montage.

That's really a question for the director, not the film subject - *wink* - , but I would advocate consistency, based on the story they are telling. So:

R.E.M. or U2 for accurate time capture. I'd rather hang out with Michael Stipe than Bono, though. Actually, I would love to hang with Michael Stipe, and I'd expect Bono to be an insufferable prick.

Maria McKee, or if we couldn't get her, Rikki Lee Jones for the Southern plus Show Biz thing.

For an art film, Morphine if it is a tragedy, Journey if it is a comedy.

I think if I were looking for proposals, I'd go with the Journey comedy.

DON'T STOP. BELIEVING. HOLD ON TO THAT FEEELAYAYING. Dubbed over a complete breakdown of some sort. Funnay!

Miles Davis, especially his early 70s work.

If the movie were being made by someone who genuinely hated me, they'd commission Philip Glass to score it based on a theme by Alban Berg.

Vaughn Williams' Lark Ascending would fit in well somewhere, especially if I suddenly find myself wandering through a waving barley field under a tumultuous sky somewhere in Surrey.

If I am called upon to kick some ass, it might be done against the March to the Scaffold from Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.

The fourth and fifth movements of Rachmaninoff's Vespers are my long dark night of the soul.

The second movement of Tchaikovsky's String Quartet #1 plays while a slow meditative montage illustrates my brain slowly accepting that I have fallen in love.

The second movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto #5 is being loved back.

The aftermath would be set to the Moonlight interlude from Britten's Peter Grimes.

Satie's Gnossienne #5 is a wandering walk through the rain, past resignation into acceptance.

I have been thinking about this for literally my entire life and it will take more then a quick stolen airport wifi break to answer it.

I'd put some Johnny Cash in there, maybe Hurt, but I'm pretty certain that I'm not cool enough for that.

What richat said!

Yakkity-Sax, perhaps a particularly gloomy Russian choir here and there, and Tiny Tim's "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" accompanied with gunfire. Any bland moments can be dubbed with random bagpipes.