Bob Dylan gathered together a cracker jack group of musicians to record this excellent soundtrack, a romantic and mythic ode to a west that could only have existed in a collaboration between two artists walking the desperate line between sentimentality and mourning.
Sam Peckinpah when making the deeply flawed but often beautiful companion film, tottered on the abyss. The film may have marked his falling off the precipice, but Bob Dylan's brilliant fusing of folk, country and western and rock provided a sonic union rarely found in soundtracks. This album serves as a funeral dirge not only for the mythic Billy The Kid, but for Sam Peckinpah also. In fact, Dylan's score makes the film work far better that it perhaps deserves to.
Granted, like the film it echoes, this album does often sound redundant. But when it hits as it does with the brilliant opening theme "Billy" (Wes Anderson resurrects it most magnificently in "Royal Tennenbaums") and of course the classic "Knocking On Heaven's Door". Dylan even pulls off a comical Kris Kristofferson impersonation in one cut. Much of this album contains arguably some of Dlyan's finest instrumental and acoustic work. The sheer sound of the music evokes strong images of southwestern sunsets and small rivers rolling lazily by sandy dunes. It evokes images of time passing and figures holding passionately to the ephemeral. To quote the film:
"It feels like times have changed"
Sam Peckinpah when making the deeply flawed but often beautiful companion film, tottered on the abyss. The film may have marked his falling off the precipice, but Bob Dylan's brilliant fusing of folk, country and western and rock provided a sonic union rarely found in soundtracks. This album serves as a funeral dirge not only for the mythic Billy The Kid, but for Sam Peckinpah also. In fact, Dylan's score makes the film work far better that it perhaps deserves to.
Granted, like the film it echoes, this album does often sound redundant. But when it hits as it does with the brilliant opening theme "Billy" (Wes Anderson resurrects it most magnificently in "Royal Tennenbaums") and of course the classic "Knocking On Heaven's Door". Dylan even pulls off a comical Kris Kristofferson impersonation in one cut. Much of this album contains arguably some of Dlyan's finest instrumental and acoustic work. The sheer sound of the music evokes strong images of southwestern sunsets and small rivers rolling lazily by sandy dunes. It evokes images of time passing and figures holding passionately to the ephemeral. To quote the film:
"It feels like times have changed"
"Times maybe. . . but not me." J Remington
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