As Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie continues to top the box office for the second week in a row, the soundtrack to the film has formed its own life. Original songs on the soundtrack from Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice, Charli XCX, Haim, Sam Smith, Gayle, PinkPantheress, Dua Lipa, who also stars in the film, are featured within the soundtrack, among other artists.
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Several covers also slipped into the soundtrack, and Barbie The Album (Best Weekend Ever Edition). Those include Matchbox Twenty’s 1996 hit “Push,” performed by Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, and a rendition of the Indigo Girls’ song “Closer to Fine,” covered by Brandi Carlile and wife Catherine.
The Carliles’ rendition is a slowed-down, acoustic take on the Indigo Girls’ signature song, also the opening track of the duo’s 1989 self-titled debut. Produced by Carlile, who also plays guitar, piano, keyboard, banjo, and Moog on the track, the song also features Matt Chamberlain on drums and Dave Mackay on keyboard.
Their cover also marks the first time Catherine, who has sung backing vocals on many of her wife’s songs, is credited as a singer on one of Brandi’s songs.
In the film, Margot Robbie, who plays the “main” Barbie character is also singing along to the Indigo Girls classic. “Do you guys ever think about dying?” says her character in the film. “There’s more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line,” says Robbie’s Barbie as she hops in her pink Corvette and drives off singing along to “Closer to Fine.”
Written by Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers when her bandmate Amy Ray graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, “Closer to Fine” quickly became a staple for the duo live in the early days, and has remained one throughout their career.
“When the trailer came out, our listening audience lost their minds,” said Sailers of the Barbie film. “As a fan of both Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, to see and hear them singing a song I wrote was just mind-blowing. It was a surprise that fell out of the sky, like a gift from heaven, for sure.”
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“Close to Fine” appears in the film two more times during more existential moments. “If Greta felt like this is a song that could have been in the reality of the Barbie world before it hit the real world, then that’s a lot,” said Sailers. “And then, of course, Barbie and Ken and all of them are questioning: Who am I? What is my place in life? All the questions, and of course that song is all about asking questions.
“It’s wonderful that it, it had its place throughout the movie in the different contexts, like the real world Barbie land and, and it actually fit into what some of the movie was trying to explore,” Sailers added.
Directed by Gerwig with a screenplay she co-wrote with Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), Barbie is based on the Mattel doll launched in 1959. The film revisits various, life-like iterations of the doll, her beau Ken, and other characters introduced throughout the history of the toy brand.
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Starring Robbie in the lead role, and Gosling as the “main” Ken, the film also features alternate versions of the two characters. Those versions are played by Issa Rae, Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, Scott Evans, Sharon Rooney, and Kingsley Ben-Adir, and others.
Just 11 days after premiering, Barbie has grossed more than $350 million in the U.S. and more than $780 million worldwide.
Photo: Gary Miller/Getty Images
