City of Stars

[1] In the film, the song is first sung by Gosling alone as the character of Sebastian as he sings and dances on the Hermosa Beach Pier.

Later in the film, it is reprised by Sebastian and Mia (Stone) during a montage of him getting ready to tour with Keith's (John Legend) band, as well as Mia quitting her job at a coffee shop and renting out a theater for her one-woman play.

It's so funny that that and "Audition" are the two songs that people seem to be responding to the most, at least so far, because they had similar processes in the sense that they had probably the least amount of fussing at the piano demo stage.

I was thinking about that idea a little bit and just trying to compose a melody that I thought was shapely and beautiful.

I guess it has some jazz inflections, because it’s something Sebastian plays on the piano.The music video was uploaded to YouTube channel on Apr 17, 2017, and has gained more than 31 million views as of April 2024.