"Masterminds" Soundtrack Lyrics

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"Masterminds (Original Motion Picture Score)" – Album Guide to Tracks and Key Scenes

Overview

Can a heist soundtrack stay light on its feet when the crime it covers is both real and deeply stupid? Masterminds tries to answer that by pairing a straight-faced score with songs that wink at every bad decision on screen.

The film dramatizes the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery in North Carolina as a crime comedy: armored-car driver David Ghantt, egged on by ex-coworker Kelly Campbell and low-rent schemer Steve Chambers, steals $17 million and immediately bungles his getaway. The movie leans into Jared Hess’s taste for weirdos and regional awkwardness; Zach Galifianakis staggers through Mexico, Kristen Wiig plays Kelly as a guilty crush, and Owen Wilson turns Steve into a suburban con man who shops like a lottery winner.

Over that, composer Geoff Zanelli writes a compact 34-minute score that treats the stakes seriously: propulsive cues for the armored-car job, tense textures for FBI pressure, small emotional beats when David realizes he has been played. Around the score, the soundtrack drops in classic-rock and pop cuts — Rare Earth, The Clash, Enya, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, Heavy Young Heathens — plus trailer-only bangers from Flo Rida and AC/DC.

The arc is simple: arrival, adaptation, rebellion, collapse. Early cues and licensed tracks sell David’s routine life and half-baked restlessness. Mid-film, the music flips into swagger — shopping montages, Mexico escapades, and party scenes scored with chest-thumping rock and soul. By the end, ironic choices like “I Fought the Law” underline that the masterminds were never masterminds at all. Stylistically, rock and Southern soul signal crooked bravado, soft-focus New Age pop (“Only Time”) undercuts romance with absurdity, and the score’s heist-thriller language keeps reminding us there is a real crime under the jokes.

How It Was Made

Geoff Zanelli, a Remote Control alumnus with credits ranging from Disturbia to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, signed on to score Masterminds after long admiring Jared Hess’s earlier work. The brief was tricky: play the robbery as a genuine thriller while acknowledging that almost every character on screen is in over their head.

The resulting score album, Masterminds (Original Motion Picture Score), runs 15 tracks and just over 34 minutes. Relativity Music Group released it digitally on September 30, 2016, the day of the film’s wide US opening, positioning it as a companion piece rather than a separate commercial event. Cue titles like “Go Time,” “17. Million. Dollars!,” “Interpol Chase” and “You Robbed a Bank for Me” map directly onto key plot beats, keeping the narrative legible even in audio form.

Licensed songs came from a different pipeline. The film folds in catalog tracks chosen for their lyrical irony (“I Fought the Law,” “Don’t Pull Your Love Out”), cultural baggage (“Only Time”) and party energy (“I Just Want to Celebrate,” “This Is How We Do It”). Blog and fan commentary has since confirmed that Heavy Young Heathens’ “Already Gone” — the elusive “bang goes the gun” track — was cut bespoke for the project and used prominently but never given a commercial release.

Tracks & Scenes

This section focuses on how individual songs and key score cues lock to specific scenes. Time ranges are approximate, based on the standard 94-minute cut.

"Already Gone" – Heavy Young Heathens
Where it plays: The song opens the film over David’s armored-car routine and returns at the very start of the end credits, kicking in as the narrative slams to black and the titles roll. Crunchy guitars and the hook built around “bang goes the gun” sit on wide shots of trucks, cash, and David’s oblivious grin, then later over stylized credit graphics and leftover clips. The track is non-diegetic but mixed very loud, treating the heist story like a dirt-road action movie for those few minutes.

Why it matters: “Already Gone” gives Masterminds a signature sound that the official score never tries to imitate. It frames David’s crime as doomed bravado from the first shot, and its reappearance in the credits turns the whole story into a victory lap for the song rather than the crooks. Fans hunted for it for years precisely because it carried so much of the movie’s swagger.

"Only Time" – Enya
Where it plays: Midway through the film, David and his fiancée Jandice pose for a series of “romantic” engagement and wedding-style photos. The scene takes place in a small-town studio, complete with cheesy backdrops and awkward costumes. As they move from stiffly sweet poses into increasingly ridiculous ones, “Only Time” drifts in over slow-motion shots, the vocals blended with camera flashes and Jandice’s rigid smile. According to one reviewer and song databases, this is Enya’s track in the film, and it plays almost in full over the gag.

Why it matters: The choice is deliberately wrong for the moment, which is why it works. “Only Time” carries post-9/11 memorial weight and a reputation for earnest sentiment; here it scores a relationship that we know is collapsing and a montage that turns more grotesque with every pose. The contrast between sincere music and grotesque images becomes the joke.

"I Just Want To Celebrate" – Rare Earth
Where it plays: Soon after the Loomis robbery, Steve Chambers and his wife Michelle go on a reckless shopping spree, turning their sudden wealth into McMansion furniture, bad fashion, and over-the-top accessories. Over a fast-cut montage of Geopettos and mall stops, “I Just Want To Celebrate” blares on the soundtrack, the chorus synced to slow-motion shots of bags, jewelry and stunned sales staff. The sequence runs over a minute, with vocals punching in around key visual punch lines — matching outfits, ridiculous home décor, and cash-counting.

Why it matters: This is one of the most on-the-nose uses of licensed music in the film. The lyric “I just want to celebrate another day of livin’” lands right as Steve and Michelle torch their future in real time, treating stolen money like free chips. The track turns their spending into a victory lap, while the audience understands that every purchase is another nail in their legal coffin.

"Don't Pull Your Love (Out)" – Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds
Where it plays: Roughly a third of the way in, David’s exile in Mexico hits one of its strangest peaks. As the soft-rock hit plays on the soundtrack, the lyrics drift over an increasingly chaotic sequence by the water. Subtitles reveal lines like “Don’t pull your love out on me, honey / take my heart, my soul, my money,” while on screen David flails and shouts “Get it off! Eel attack!” as something wriggles around him in the water and bullets crack nearby. The song continues under the panic, only fading as the scene resolves.

Why it matters: The cue turns a straight breakup song into pure absurdist counterpoint. A track about emotional abandonment floats over a man literally being attacked by eels and gunfire. The film does this more than once — placing earnest pop over slapstick danger — but it is rarely as explicit or as musically prominent as in this scene.

"Only Time" – reprise in context
Where it plays: The same Enya cue also echoes thematically later when David starts to grasp how disposable he is to Steve. Even when the track is not literally repeating, the memory of that earlier montage colors every subsequent scene with Jandice: what should have been tender moments are now clearly props in her self-interest.

Why it matters: Masterminds does not build a traditional leitmotif system, but Enya’s presence gives the Jandice–David relationship a sonic label. Once you have heard “Only Time” over their posed romance, any callback to that mood reads as irony.

"I Fought the Law" – The Clash
Where it plays: The Clash’s live version of “I Fought the Law” hits right at the top of the end credits, after a brief epilogue about the real Loomis Fargo case. The opening riff lands as the screen cuts to black and text cards recap sentences and plea deals. According to WhatSong’s listing, the cue starts essentially at 00:01 into the credits and runs over name cards and possibly archival photos.

Why it matters: You do not need subtlety here, and the movie does not even try. The lyric is the punch line: these people fought the law and the law mostly won, even if some served surprisingly short sentences. It is also a rare moment where the film’s cynicism about the justice system leaks through the goofy surface.

"This Is How We Do It" – Montell Jordan
Where it plays: The song appears during one of the film’s “victory” beats after the heist, folded into party energy around Steve’s new lifestyle. We hear the hook over shots of crowds, dancing, and petty showing off — more bodies, more booze, more money laid out like trophies. The moment is brief, but the track’s unmistakable intro and chorus make it stick.

Why it matters: It is another flex cut. The music belongs to a confident ’90s party; the characters belong in a Walmart security video. That gap is the whole joke. The song tells us how Steve thinks he looks; the camera quietly shows us how he actually looks.

"Only Time" – Enya (photo-booth detail)
Where it plays: A detail worth calling out: as David and Jandice lean in for one of their final photos, the line “who can say where the road goes” lands right before a punch line that undercuts the supposed romance. The song is mixed just high enough that you catch that line before the gag lands.

Why it matters: That single lyric sums up David’s whole arc. He thinks he is headed toward a stable married life; in reality, the “road” leads to Mexico, a price on his head, and a spiritual crisis brought on by gas-station snacks.

"Go Time" – Geoff Zanelli
Where it plays: As the heist itself kicks off — David driving the armored truck, loading cash into the van, checking cameras — Zanelli’s “Go Time” underpins the action. The cue rides a steady groove with ticking percussion and nervous strings while the movie cuts between security routines, close-ups of bills, and David’s anxious glances at the clock. Dialogue drops out for stretches so the music can carry the tension.

Why it matters: “Go Time” is the clearest statement of the score’s philosophy. It plays the robbery like a real thriller, not a joke, which ironically makes David’s fumbling more funny. The music says: this is a serious crime; the images answer: not with these idiots.

"Geopettos shopping spree" – "I Just Want To Celebrate" – Rare Earth
Where it plays: In the Geopettos sequence noted on WhatSong, the Rare Earth track anchors the entire montage as Steve and Michelle strut through the store, pose in front of mirrors and load up carts with bad taste. The chorus usually hits as they step out of fitting rooms in new outfits or laugh way too loudly at their own jokes.

Why it matters: The scene could have worked with any upbeat rock song, but “I Just Want To Celebrate” gives it a specific, slightly grimy optimism — the kind of song you might hear at a minor-league ballpark or a regional car-commercial. Perfect for people who think “having made it” means buying everything at once.

"Only Time" / "I Fought the Law" – end framing
Where it plays: Together, Enya in the photo montage and The Clash at the credits bracket the story. Soft, almost spiritual New Age music at the center; ragged punk rock at the edge.

Why it matters: That pairing quietly says what the script sometimes forgets to spell out. What feels like a dreamy fresh start to David — love, money, a trip to Mexico — will end in mug shots and legal footnotes.

Trailer cuts – "Zillionaire" – Flo Rida; "What Do You Do for Money Honey" – AC/DC; "Don't Speak (I Came to Make a Bang!)" – Eagles of Death Metal
Where they play: These tracks never dominate the film itself but power the marketing. “What Do You Do for Money Honey” and “Zillionaire” punch up the 2015 and 2016 trailers, intercut with shots of cash, explosions and reaction faces. “Don’t Speak (I Came to Make a Bang!)” backs one of the later trailers, matching its stop-start guitar riff to quick gags and gun flashes.

Why they matter: The trailers sell Masterminds as a loud, music-driven caper, much closer to a conventional studio comedy than the oddly paced film that arrived. For some viewers, those songs are their primary association with the title; they discovered the movie because the trailer tune lodged in their brain.

Notes & Trivia

• Enya’s “Only Time” was already heavily associated with real-world tragedy and sentimental montage work when Masterminds used it for a deliberately awkward photo session.
• “Already Gone” by Heavy Young Heathens became a minor cult object: widely heard in the movie and trailers, but for years unavailable on any official release.
• Several fan sites list both “I Fought the Law” and “Already Gone” as running over the credits, essentially turning the legal wrap-up into a double rock coda.
• The eight main licensed songs (Enya, Rare Earth, The Clash, Montell Jordan, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, Heavy Young Heathens and others) circulate as an unofficial “song album” separate from the released Geoff Zanelli score.
• Score cue titles like “Corndog at a Hotdog Party” and “Vagaway Fight” quietly preserve specific visual gags from the film in the album’s track list.

Music–Story Links

Masterminds is built on contrast: David thinks he is in a noble outlaw story, while the music keeps reminding us that he is actually in a low-rent farce. Zanelli’s cues belong in a straight heist film; the licensed tracks belong on a slightly embarrassing classic-rock station.

When David loads cash into the Loomis vault to the pulse of “Go Time” and “The Getaway,” the score frames him as competent for once. The minute “I Just Want To Celebrate” or “This Is How We Do It” kicks in over Steve’s spending binges, the film tips back toward mockery: these people have no idea what they are doing with the money or with their lives.

Enya’s “Only Time” and Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds’ “Don’t Pull Your Love (Out)” both deal with vulnerability and loss, but the film weaponizes them differently. With Jandice, the Enya track exposes the hollowness of David’s romantic fantasies; with the eel-attack scene, “Don’t Pull Your Love” turns emotional stakes into slapstick, putting heartbreak lyrics over physical panic.

The end-credits move from “I Fought the Law” into fragments of the score and “Already Gone,” stitching together public record and cinematic invention. We see text about real sentencing alongside a song that celebrates running hard and losing anyway. The soundtrack, in other words, quietly acknowledges the true-crime roots that the movie mostly plays for laughs.

Reception & Quotes

Critically, Masterminds landed in the “mixed” zone: a Rotten Tomatoes score in the 30-percent range and a Metacritic average in the mid-40s. Reviews often praised the cast and individual gags while calling the film slack or scattershot. Interestingly, several critics singled out the song selection and score as one of the few consistently sharp elements.

“Great cast and stranger-than-fiction true story, largely wasted on a scattershot comedy with too much wackiness.” Rotten Tomatoes consensus

“If smart dumb comedies hold a place in your heart, you’ll like Masterminds.” Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com

“The laughs evaporate almost as soon as they land… Masterminds owes us our two hours back.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“One of the positives… is its song selection, scattered throughout the movie from Rare Earth to Enya.” Jason’s Movie Blog

As of now, the score album remains in print on major streaming platforms, and the scattered licensed songs are easy to reconstruct via playlists. The music has arguably aged better than the film: it reads as a very specific 2010s idea of what a “quirky true-crime comedy” should sound like.

Interesting Facts

• The score album is strictly Zanelli’s work: 15 cues, 34 minutes, released by Relativity Music Group on 30 September 2016 alongside the US theatrical run.
• MusicBrainz and label sources list the score under the formal title Masterminds: Original Motion Picture Score, matching the film’s international title variations.
• “Only Time” has an unusually busy screen life — Masterminds sits in a line that also includes Deadpool 2 and multiple TV dramas using the same cue.
• Heavy Young Heathens are officially credited on the film for “Already Gone,” but for years the track circulated only via fan-made audio ripped from the movie.
• Trailer music “Zillionaire” by Flo Rida never appears prominently in the feature, which has led some casual viewers to misremember it as a heist-montage song.
• The eight key licensed songs are sometimes grouped as a pseudo-album in lyrics databases, but no official multi-artist soundtrack was pressed; only the score has a formal album.
• Relativity Music Group also handled a slate of other mid-budget genre scores around the same period, making Masterminds part of a broader strategy to package music tightly with niche films.
• Zanelli later moved from this modest caper to much larger canvases like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, where his experience balancing action and comedy clearly carried over.

Technical Info

• Film title: Masterminds
• Film year: 2016
• Type: Theatrical feature – crime comedy based on the Loomis Fargo robbery
• Director: Jared Hess
• Principal cast: Zach Galifianakis (David Ghantt), Kristen Wiig (Kelly Campbell), Owen Wilson (Steve Chambers), Kate McKinnon (Jandice), Leslie Jones (Agent Scanlon), Jason Sudeikis (Mike McKinney)
• Original score: Geoff Zanelli
• Score album title: Masterminds (Original Motion Picture Score)
• Score label: Relativity Music Group, LLC
• Score release: 30 September 2016 (digital, 15 tracks, ~34 minutes)
• Key score cues: “Go Time,” “The Getaway,” “17. Million. Dollars!,” “Interpol Chase,” “McKinney,” “Sometimes the Only Way Out Is Through,” “You Robbed a Bank for Me”
• Key licensed songs (in film): “Already Gone” (Heavy Young Heathens), “Only Time” (Enya), “I Just Want To Celebrate” (Rare Earth), “I Fought the Law” (The Clash), “Don’t Pull Your Love (Out)” (Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds), “Self Centered Blues” (James Roberson), “She Was Never Mine to Lose” (Tommy Strange & The Features), “This Is How We Do It” (Montell Jordan)
• Notable trailer songs (not core OST): “Zillionaire” (Flo Rida), “What Do You Do for Money Honey” (AC/DC), “Don’t Speak (I Came to Make a Bang!)” (Eagles of Death Metal)
• Availability: Score widely available on Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL and YouTube Music; licensed songs available on original artist albums and compilations; no official multi-artist “song” soundtrack.
• Reception snapshot: Rotten Tomatoes ~34% approval; Metacritic mid-40s; CinemaScore B− from opening-night audiences.

Questions & Answers

Is there a full official soundtrack album for all the songs in Masterminds?

No. The only official album is Geoff Zanelli’s score. The eight main licensed songs exist on their own artist releases, and fans assemble them in playlists.

Who composed the Masterminds score and what is its style?

Geoff Zanelli composed the score. It mixes rhythmic, guitar-inflected heist writing with lighter, almost folksy textures to keep the film tense without losing its comedic edge.

What song plays over the awkward photo session with David and Jandice?

That montage uses Enya’s “Only Time,” turning a famously earnest New Age ballad into an off-kilter joke about doomed romance.

What are the main songs over the end credits?

The film uses The Clash’s “I Fought the Law” and Heavy Young Heathens’ “Already Gone” alongside excerpts from Zanelli’s score, under the text about the real Loomis Fargo case.

Can I legally stream “Already Gone” by Heavy Young Heathens?

As of now, it has appeared sporadically online but has not had a wide official retail or streaming release, which is why fans still trade information about it.

Canonical Entities & Relations

Subject	Relation	Object
Masterminds (2016 film)	directed by	Jared Hess
Masterminds (2016 film)	music by	Geoff Zanelli
Masterminds (2016 film)	features character	David Ghantt
Zach Galifianakis	plays	David Ghantt
Kristen Wiig	plays	Kelly Campbell
Owen Wilson	plays	Steve Chambers
Kate McKinnon	plays	Jandice
Leslie Jones	plays	Agent Scanlon
Jason Sudeikis	plays	Mike McKinney
Masterminds (Original Motion Picture Score)	is soundtrack to	Masterminds (2016 film)
Masterminds (Original Motion Picture Score)	composed by	Geoff Zanelli
Masterminds (Original Motion Picture Score)	released by	Relativity Music Group
Rare Earth	performs	“I Just Want To Celebrate”
The Clash	performs	“I Fought the Law”
Enya	performs	“Only Time”
Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds	performs	“Don’t Pull Your Love (Out)”
Heavy Young Heathens	performs	“Already Gone”
Montell Jordan	performs	“This Is How We Do It”
Flo Rida	performs	“Zillionaire” (trailer music)
Eagles of Death Metal	performs	“Don’t Speak (I Came to Make a Bang!)” (trailer music)

Sources: Wikipedia and Netflix entries for film credits and plot; WhatSong and Soundtrakd listings for cue titles and scene notes; Lyrics.az and Ringostrack for licensed-song groupings and writers; Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL and label catalogs for score album metadata; Filmmusicreporter and Relativity Music Group discography notes; subtitle transcripts and fan forums for precise lyric placements and “Already Gone” identification; major reviews including RogerEbert.com, Rotten Tomatoes, Rolling Stone and Jason’s Movie Blog for reception and commentary on song choices.

If only you love stupid jokes, which are forgotten at once they landed, you should watch this film. It has collected a little over 6 million dollars at the premiere weekend, though the bosses planned to get at least USD 10 M. This makes the expectations at its financial success not so shiny as the film’s producers wanted but it should cover its budget, as it isn’t supposed to be big. The film follows the real events lying under a plot pretty in-line, sticking to them as close as possible. What they did extra is coloring the main character with additional stupidity in order to make people believe in his inner triggers to rob the bank’s vault, being recorded on the cameras & thus, very easily traceable. Even his departure in Mexico didn’t help him to be eventually tied up by the feds, along with all his associates & other collaborates (in the real life, in total 24 persons were sentenced to various terms in prison, but some of them were on probation). As for the music, it has no loud names, except Enya – she was underlining the most romantic moment of the film when a protagonist had a great time with his spouse (she becomes an ex as the plot evolves). The most part is a rock in several its manifestations (I Fought The Law is the most vivid piece, done by The Clash). The lyrics of I Just Want To Celebrate are so easy and unpretentious that allow you to love them from the first glance. Don't Pull Your Love is interesting too, but its lyric is obviously cry-babying thing – only for lovers of snots & tears of an adult man. This Is How We Do It is extremely consonant with the oeuvre of Backstreet Boys in the tempo, style & even the music itself, despite the fact that this is not pop. Still, lightness & airiness is always a great thing for the mood, which can provide this film & its soundtrack even for a day.

November, 15th 2025

Masterminds on IMDb, Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes

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A-Z Lyrics Universe

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