The hippies are soundtracked to “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” while “For What It’s Worth” predictably underlines Forrest’s disillusionment at serving in a senseless war. The soundtrack was like going to a wedding reception and the DJ just playing “Y.M.C.A.” and “Macarena” over and over again. Sure, those songs are popular, but aren’t you sick of them by now?
The “Forrest Gump” soundtrack, which was overseen by veteran music supervisor Joel Sill and included Oscar-nominated composer Alan Silvestri’s instrumental “Forrest Gump Suite,” wasn’t seeking to recontextualize these songs. Rather, the film was designed to reinforce its audience’s associations with those familiar tunes. The album grabbed tracks used in previous films and musicals—“Mrs. Robinson,” “Everybody’s Talkin’,” “Medley: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”—which added to the movie’s intentional feeling of déjà vu, Forrest’s strange odyssey across American history meant to replicate the viewer’s, except he met so many more famous people than you ever did.
In a sense, the soundtrack wanted to demonstrate how songs aren’t clichés to those who lived through their emergence—in fact, they’re the very fabric of your being, the aural wallpaper for your formative memories. The album’s selections may be obvious and on-the-nose—“Blowin’ in the Wind” (Joan Baez’s version), “Respect” (Aretha Franklin’s version, naturally), “Break on Through (To the Other Side),” “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season),” “Joy to the World” (which was also featured on the “Big Chill” soundtrack)—but to the Baby Boomers to whom Zemeckis was catering, they were elemental, essential. They were the soundtrack to their lives—and, as a result, songs that future generations would never escape.
The album existed at a time when two-disc compilations were all the rage, an easy way to get acquainted (or reacquainted) with a particular musical style or artist. (The Beatles’ hallowed “Blue” and “Red” greatest hits, first released in the early 1970s, finally came to CD in 1993.) Best-ofs were big business—a lucrative opportunity for record labels to repackage and resell old songs—and “Forrest Gump” perfectly fit the moment. Nowadays, it would just be a streaming service playlist—maybe they’d call it Boomer Rock or Feel-Good Oldies—that would be the background music for a cookout. In the 30 years since the “Forrest Gump” soundtrack came out, its selections have been reduced to a vibe, an algorithm, a CliffsNotes of classic American rock and R&B. The songs’ individual potency—their ability to stun with their passion or originality—has been lost to time. They’re now just a bunch of songs your parents or grandparents liked when they were kids.