The original score was composed by Carter Burwell, a veteran of all the Coen Brothers' films. While the Coens were writing the screenplay they had Kenny Rogers' "Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was in)", the Gipsy Kings' cover of "Hotel California", and several Creedence Clearwater Revival songs in mind.[34] They asked T-Bone Burnett (who would later work with the Coens on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis) to pick songs for the soundtrack of the film. They knew that they wanted different genres of music from different times but, as Joel remembers, "T-Bone even came up with some far-out Henry Mancini and Yma Sumac."[35] Burnett was able to secure songs by Kenny Rogers and the Gipsy Kings and also added tracks by Captain Beefheart, Moondog and Bob Dylan's "The Man in Me".[34] However, he had a tough time securing the rights to Townes Van Zandt's cover of the Rolling Stones' "Dead Flowers", which plays over the film's closing credits. Former Stones manager Allen Klein owned the rights to the song and wanted $150,000 for it. Burnett convinced Klein to watch an early cut of the film and remembers, "It got to the part where the Dude says, 'I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man!' Klein stands up and says, 'That's it, you can have the song!' That was beautiful."[34][36][37] Burnett was going to be credited on the film as "Music Supervisor", but asked his credit to be "Music Archivist" because he "hated the notion of being a supervisor; I wouldn't want anyone to think of me as management".[35]
For Joel, "the original music, as with other elements of the movie, had to echo the retro sounds of the Sixties and early Seventies".[21]: 156 Music defines each character. For example, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" by Bob Nolan was chosen for the Stranger at the time the Coens wrote the screenplay, as was "Lujon" by Henry Mancini for Jackie Treehorn. "The German nihilists are accompanied by techno-pop and Jeff Bridges by Creedence. So there's a musical signature for each of them", remarked Ethan in an interview.[21]: 156 The character Uli Kunkel was in the German electronic band Autobahn, an homage to the band Kraftwerk. The album cover of their record Nagelbett (bed of nails) is a parody of the Kraftwerk album cover for The Man-Machine and the group name Autobahn shares the name of a Kraftwerk song and album. In the lyrics the phrase "We believe in nothing" is repeated with electronic distortion. This is a reference to Autobahn's nihilism in the film.[38]
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Performer | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | "The Man in Me" | Bob Dylan | Dylan | 3:08 |
2. | "Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles" | Captain Beefheart | Beefheart | 2:54 |
3. | "My Mood Swings" | Elvis Costello and Cait O'Riordan | Costello | 2:10 |
4. | "Ataypura" | Moises Vivanco | Yma Sumac | 3:03 |
5. | "Traffic Boom" | Piero Piccioni | Piccioni | 3:15 |
6. | "I Got It Bad & That Ain't Good" | Duke Ellington and Paul Francis Webster | Nina Simone | 4:07 |
7. | "Stamping Ground" (The track actually includes two songs, starting with "Theme", which then leads to "Stamping Ground") | Moondog | Moondog | 5:11 |
8. | "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" | Mickey Newbury | Kenny Rogers & The First Edition | 3:21 |
9. | "Walking Song" | Meredith Monk | Monk | 2:55 |
10. | "Glück das mir verblieb" (from Die tote Stadt ) | Erich Wolfgang Korngold | Ilona Steingruber, Anton Dermota and the Austrian State Radio Orchestra | 5:08 |
11. | "Lujon" | Henry Mancini | Mancini | 2:38 |
12. | "Hotel California" | Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Don Felder | The Gipsy Kings | 5:47 |
13. | "Technopop" (Wie Glauben) | Carter Burwell | Burwell | 3:21 |
14. | "Dead Flowers" | Mick Jagger and Keith Richards | Townes Van Zandt | 4:47 |
Total length: | 51:45 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Performer | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" | Bob Nolan | Sons of the Pioneers | |
2. | "Mucha Muchacha" | Juan García Esquivel | Esquivel | |
3. | "I Hate You" | Gary Burger, David Havlicek, Roger Johnston, Thomas E. Shaw and Larry Spangler | The Monks | |
4. | "Requiem in D Minor: Introitus and Lacrimosa" | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir | |
5. | "Run Through the Jungle" | John Fogerty | Creedence Clearwater Revival | |
6. | "Behave Yourself" | Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson, Jr. and Lewie Steinberg | Booker T. & the MG's | |
7. | "Standing on the Corner" | Frank Loesser | Dean Martin | |
8. | "Tammy" | Jay Livingston and Ray Evans | Debbie Reynolds | |
9. | "We Venerate Thy Cross" | traditional | The Rustavi Choir | |
10. | "Lookin' Out My Back Door" | John Fogerty | Creedence Clearwater Revival | |
11. | "Gnomus" (from Pictures at an Exhibition) | Modest Mussorgsky, arranged for orchestra by Maurice Ravel. | ||
12. | "Oye Como Va" | Tito Puente | Santana | |
13. | "Piacere Sequence" | Teo Usuelli | Usuelli | |
14. | "Branded Theme Song" | Alan Alch and Dominic Frontiere | ||
15. | "Peaceful Easy Feeling" | Jack Tempchin | Eagles | |
16. | "Viva Las Vegas" | Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman | ZZ Top (with Bunny Lebowski); and Shawn Colvin (closing credits). | |
17. | "Dick on a Case" | Carter Burwell | Burwell |