Modern Soundtrack Reviewtrack-by-track scores
Goodbye Lenin
Soundtrack review

Goodbye Lenin

Yann Tiersen · 2003

“Skilled piano miniatures that lean on the same motifs until it tires”

3.51Time weighted
3.30Track weighted
23 tracks · 47m

In East Berlin, a young man's mother wakes from a coma having slept through the fall of the Wall. Told any shock could kill her, he rebuilds the vanished GDR inside her bedroom, one staged news broadcast and relabeled jar of pickles at a time.

Yann Tiersen is a genuinely skilled piano composer, but Goodbye Lenin is built from tracks too short to appreciate and motifs repeated until the album gets tiring fast.

Goodbye Lenin is a great example of a silly and mellow soundtrack. It's based mostly on piano, and Yann Tiersen is a very skilled creator of piano music. One of the issues, however, is how short each track is. You really have difficulty appreciating the music. Another issue is that it's just really, really, really repetitive. He uses the same motifs over and over again in the same songs. If there were more structure, it would be much more appealing. But as a listen, it gets tiring fast.

There are occasional moments of levity. "The Decount Session" sounds almost like something out of a bumbling French detective movie. But those moments aren't even that enjoyable; it's just the same motifs over and over.

Track by track

23 tracks · rated out of 5
1

Summer 78

3:51
5.0
2

Coma

1:18
3.5
3

Childhood (1)

1:38
3.5
4

From Prison to Hospital

1:28
2.5
5

Mother

0:50
3.5
6

Watching Lara

1:29
3.0
7

Dishes

0:48
3.0
8

First Rendez.Vous

1:17
3.0
9

The Decount Session

0:47
2.5
10

Lara's Castle

1:47
3.0
11

The Deutsch Mark is Coming

1:12
2.5
12

I Saw Daddy Today

2:04
3.5
13

Birthday Preparation

2:31
3.0
14

Good Bye Lenin

4:58
3.5
15

Childhood (2)

1:45
3.5
16

The Letters

1:21
2.5
17

Mother's Journey

1:29
3.5
18

Preparation for the Last TV Fake

3:08
3.0
19

Mother Will Die

3:10
3.5
20

Father is Late

1:32
3.5
21

Father and Mother

2:54
3.5
22

Finding the Money

1:26
3.0
23

Summer 78 (Mit Claire Pichet)

3:56
5.0

Time weighted averages each track’s rating by its runtime (longer tracks count more). Track weighted treats every track equally. Both are computed directly from the ratings above.