The Soundtrack:

Track listing:

Guitar Solo, No 1
The round stones beneath the earth
Guitar Solo, No 2
Why dost thou hide thyself, cloud?
Organ Solo
Do you know how to use this weapon?
Guitar Solo, No 3
Nobody's Story
Guitar Solo, No 4
Stupid White Men
Guitar Solo, No 5
Time for you to leave, William Blake
Guitar Solo, No 6

composed and performed by Neil Young
poetry reading by Johnny Depp
includes extracts from the movie

On first listening, I was very disappointed by the soundtrack. I'd loved the music by Neil Young in the movie, but this was awful. Noise, not music! The sound of the car was grating. I put the album away at the bottom of a pile and didn't think I'd bother to listen to it again. I was so disappointed: my favourite movie deserved a really great soundtrack, not this horrible collection of noises.

Then, while working on this site, I dug it out again. This time I listened to it through headphones, and I found that this cut out a lot of the overdubbed car sound. Either that or there just wasn't as much of it as I had first thought. I found myself listening, spellbound, as William, once again, journeyed across a nightmarish landscape, to the sea. And finally, I understood the reason for the car. In the movie, William and Nobody travel on horses, but the car is substituted on the soundtrack. If you listen to the track where William is not too happy about going down to talk with Sally, Big George and Tench, you can hear him get out of the car and close the door behind him. In the movie he travelled from Machine, in the soundtrack he travels in a machine. Genius!

And then there was Nobody's "it's time for you to leave, William Blake" speech, that made me cry when I watched the movie. I felt tearful again, listening to it. This world will no longer concern you. I can't help it, I mourn for William and his whole life, snuffed out over a misunderstanding.