So Far So Good (From "About Last Night")

So Far So Good: Sheena Easton Soundtracks a Summer Romance

There's a particular kind of movie that 1986 did exceptionally well: the young adult drama pitched somewhere between heartfelt and glossy, full of earnest feelings and good-looking people navigating the gap between who they are and who they want to become. About Last Night, the Rob Lowe and Demi Moore film adapted from a David Mamet play, was precisely that kind of movie, and Sheena Easton's contribution to its soundtrack matched the film's romantic register note for note.

Sheena Easton in 1986

By the middle of the decade, Sheena Easton had demonstrated a remarkable range for a pop singer who had originally emerged from a Scottish talent search programme. She'd scored a Bond theme with For Your Eyes Only, collaborated with Prince on U Got the Look, and built a reputation for vocal warmth across multiple pop formats. She was genuinely one of the more adaptable pop vocalists of the era, able to move convincingly between styles without losing the essential quality that made her recognizable. So Far So Good arrived as part of the soundtrack to About Last Night, placing Easton's voice in service of a story about the complicated arithmetic of adult relationships in a big city. The fit was natural: Easton had always excelled at conveying emotional honesty without melodrama.

The Sound of Cautious Optimism

The production on So Far So Good has the lush, slightly burnished quality that mid-1980s soundtrack work tended toward: synthesizer textures, a smooth rhythm bed, and Easton's voice riding comfortably above the arrangement with its characteristic clarity. Soundtrack singles occupied an interesting commercial space in that era; they needed to work as standalone radio songs while also reflecting the emotional world of the film that generated them. This one manages both, carrying enough independent momentum to stand alone while clearly belonging to a particular cinematic summer. The restraint in the production suits the lyric's emotional register exactly.

A Steady Rise Through Autumn

The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 on August 2, 1986, debuting at position 84. It climbed through the late summer and early autumn weeks with reliable momentum, peaking at number 43 on September 27, 1986, after 12 weeks on the chart. For a soundtrack single, that kind of chart life represented a solid commercial performance. The song benefited from the film's own promotional cycle, with each piece of marketing for About Last Night providing an indirect push for the single's radio presence. The two properties supported each other with the kind of symbiotic efficiency that the film-pop complex was learning to optimize in the mid-1980s.

Soundtrack Pop as an Art Form

The mid-1980s were genuinely fertile ground for the movie soundtrack single. Films like Top Gun, Footloose, and The Breakfast Club all generated iconic pop moments from their music, and the broader culture had absorbed the idea that a great film needed a great song. Easton's entry into that conversation was characteristically understated: she didn't oversell the emotion or reach for a power-ballad climax that the song didn't need. The restraint was the point, matching a film about people trying to be honest with each other about what they wanted. Big feelings in a small register, which is harder to pull off than it looks.

A Footnote That Rewards Attention

In the larger story of Sheena Easton's 1980s output, So Far So Good occupies a modest but genuine position. It isn't the track people name first when they discuss her career, but it demonstrates the quiet professionalism that made her one of the more durable pop voices of the decade: always findable on the radio, always reliable in quality, always serving the song rather than demanding that the song serve her ego. Twelve weeks on the chart is a respectable run for a film single by any standard, and the performance here is too good to be dismissed as mere product.

If you want a small, perfect time capsule of what a 1986 summer felt like at the movies, press play.

“So Far So Good” — Sheena Easton's singular moment on the 1980s charts.