No. 246 – Jump into the Fire

Performer: Harry Nilsson

Songwriter: Harry Nilsson

Original Release: Nilsson Schmilsson

Year: 1971

Definitive Version: None.

This song continues to move up strongly. It’s entirely possible that were I to redo this list in another 5 years (and I won’t), it could be in the top 100.

Dad bought Nilsson Schmilsson when I was a kid. He loved the song Coconut, and so did I. When you’re a kid, what’s not to like? I didn’t understand the meaning, of course, but it was a fun song to sing along to.

Only years later, after I was exposed to this song, I came to learn that Jump into the Fire not only had been done by the same guy who did Coconut, but also that they were on the same album (actually the same record side, although there’s one other song between them on Side 2). I loved learning that: that the same record that produced the fun little ditty that appealed to kids that’s Coconut also featured the off-the-rails rave-out that’s Jump into the Fire.

As anyone who has seen the movie might guess, I can’t think of anything else when I hear this song than “The Final Day,” with helicopters constantly buzzing overhead as Henry Hill runs out his string of luck as a gangster.

Goodfellas is one of my all-time favorite movies, as I suppose it is for a lot of people. If I may don my Roger Ebert tweed jacket for a second, the sequence of events that take place on “The Final Day” is nothing short of pure genius, from the music cuts, to the frantic voice-over, to the dolly zoom into Ray Liotta’s bloodshot eyes totally blown out from coke. And Jump into the Fire, of course, is the main theme. I still remember the jolt that seeing Goodfellas for the first time gave me. It was like Pulp Fiction years later—visceral and exhilarating.

I had something of a routine for movies back in Flint. Of course, the Showcase theater was in Burton—there were no movie theaters in Flint proper, as Michael Moore pointed out in Roger & Me. I’d drive the back country roads that were the direct route instead of the freeway and stop at Subway for dinner, which I would smuggle in under my long wool coat. I almost always went alone, which was fine, because, I had Jin as my movie-discussing companion. We both raved about Goodfellas.

Of course, Goodfellas lost the 1991 best picture Oscar—one of several such robberies of Martin Scorsese—to the broad Western epic known as Dances With Wolves. Now, I’ve talked about my love of Dances With Wolves and how it hit me at precisely the perfect time in my life to have the most impact. (And that it was a beautiful and excellently done movie in its own right didn’t hurt.) At the time of the Oscars in 1991, I was behind Dances winning everything it could.

But just as time heals all wounds, it also creates different perspectives. After I left the wilderness of Flint, the feelings that connected me with Dances lessened—as did my love of the movie.

Now, Dances, while still a great movie, isn’t even my favorite Kevin Costner movie, let alone my favorite movie of all time. And there’s no question in my mind—none whatsoever—that Goodfellas is the better of the two. I’ve watched Goodfellas several times in the past decade. I can’t tell you the last time I watched Dances all the way through.

And there also is no question—none whatsoever—that I now prefer my Harry Nilsson raving out.