Neil Young’s improvised, unaccompanied soundtrack, channeled largely through his mythical Gibson Les Paul, “Old Black”, seems spiritually connected with the stark monochromatic landscape and visceral beauty of Dead Man, Jim Jarmusch’s cult psychedelic western. While writing Dead Man – a reimagining of the American Wild West interspersed with the metaphysical poetry of William Blake – Jarmusch reportedly spliced together cassettes of some of Neil Young’s instrumental passages to inspire him as he wrote, calling Young’s playing “masterfully, beautifully damaged rock-and-roll music—perfect imperfection.” With Young’s DNA already in the bedrock of Deadman, the film and his his style aligned perfectly, and the soundtrack finds his playing at its most pure. Unbeholden to traditional song structure and free from the constraints and expectations that would accompany a traditional studio album, Young watched the film with guitar in hand and played reactively to what he saw, using the guitar as a direct tool of expression. A concept so avant-garde yet so simple is classic Neil Young – the result is an ambient classic and some of his finest work.
Pete Whelan 