The Big Lebowski Soundtrack

In this entry I look at some very interesting ways in which music is used in the film.  As you may or may not know (go HERE to find out more) the film noir genre commonly features a disjointed soundtrack of various genres fitting to each scene, even to each character, without necessarily any relation between songs.  This is truly exemplified in the soundtrack for The Big Lebowski.  We the audience is led to believe that just like the Dude, “fits right in” to his time and place, the music fits right into each scene.  Moreover, the songs chosen are a crucial element of each scene rather than merely to provide some background noise of which the main actions to unfold over.

The film begins with a panning shot of a very dry desert looking landscape and with a title font suggesting the credits to read something like “…Starring: John Wayne…” In comes the voice over narration done by Sam Elliot (The Stranger), who IMDB calls the, “classic picture of the American cowboy.” With these things in mind, The Big Lebowski qualifies as a Western right off the bat.  The apparent genre is made complete with the 1934 Son’s of the Pioneers song, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" gently crooned in the background.  As everybody who has seen the movie knows, the film is not specifically a Western (it takes place in 1990s Los Angeles) but would likely be considered a noir comedy.  This is rather interesting because the Western and film noir genres have much in common, with the Western cowboys thought to have evolved into noir's private eyes.  And actually, The Big Lebowski is full of Western tropes, but just like the Stranger, I seem to have lost my train of thought...



Back on topic, the camera pans upward to show literally a tumbling tumbleweed head up a ridge and reveal the setting to be Los Angeles.  We then continue on with “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” as we watch the tumbling tumbleweed make its way through various LA locations.  Eventually we end up in a supermarket, where we first meet Dude.  Here is where something very interesting happens.  Rather than the Sons of the Pioneers classic song fading out to begin this new scene (which would seemingly not require a 1930s soundtrack), the song continues playing, but transforms into a Muzak version played over the supermarket PA system.  Rather than have a different song play in the supermarket, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" continues, which leads us to make a connection between the western atmosphere created by Sam Elliot’s awesome cowboy voice and the rest of the movie.

In this opening scene, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" is not a song added post production, but rather was playing "in" the supermarket the entire time.  Therefore, we heard it, The Stranger heard it (he seems pretty omnipotent), and Dude heard it, bringing the audience closer into the film and making the use of music in the film more meaningful.

Quick side note, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" was written in Los Angeles!

After Dude gets his rug peed on and the film's title is displayed for the first time, Bob Dylan’s "The Man in Me" starts playing over a montage of the bowling alley where Dude, Walter, and Donny bowl.  As with "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," it is soon made known that the song is actually being played in the scene itself, rather than over it.  As the credits end and the camera moves its focus to Dude and Walter conversing, the song picks up some echo, decreases in volume a bit, and it is clear that it is being played in the bowling alley itself.  This again supports the idea that the soundtrack was specifically designed to be integrated seamlessly into the film.

The lyrics of the song also shed some light on one of the main themes of the movie (I'll post my paper The Big Lebowski and Feminism at a future date for reference).  The song begins, “The man in me will do nearly any task/ as for compensation, there’s a little he will ask.”  This clearly relates to the fact that Dude goes along with everything people ask him to do, and all he wants in return is his rug.  Also the lyrics "man in me" directly relate to the Big Lebowski's question to Dude, "What make's a man?"

Watch The Scene For Yourself!

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Another nice use of music comes in the scene where we first meet one of the more eccentric characters of the film, The Jesus.

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At the surface, the song choice makes sense, a latin guy bowling to the Gypsy Kings, I can buy it.  But why choose a cover of The Eagle's "Hotel California"?  If the only purpose was to give Jesus his own theme song then why not another of the Gypsy Kings classic songs? "Bamboleo" immediately comes to mind...  Well, after doing some very brief research into the original song (Wikipedia is pretty useful here...), I discovered that the lyrics were written as a metaphor for the negative side effects of attempting to achieve success in America, more specifically, of the extravagances of Los Angeles life.  Moreover, the song was written as The Eagles literally drove into LA.  Well now things make a little more sense, let's see if I can explain my interpretation...

As the above scene depicts, we learn that Jesus was a pederast and had to go door to door in his LA neighborhood telling people of his offense.  So here is a guy, who is a GREAT bowler, as Dude remarks, but who has this dark past.  Jesus makes an attempt to move on with his life, likely through focusing his time on bowling, but he will never be able to escape the label already given to him.  He wears very extravagant rings, and a whole custom bowling ensemble to try to portray himself as a successful American, more specifically, as somebody who's made a name for himself in Los Angeles.  But as the lyrics suggest, "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."  Jesus may think that he has put his past behind him but he will always be a registered sex offender, and obviously Walter isn't afraid to call him out on it.

A final reason for this specific song choice:  We learn later in the movie that Dude HATES the Eagles (he gets kicked out of a cab for it).  The fact that an Eagles cover is the theme for Jesus likely relates to the fact that Dude, and Walter for that matter, are not too fond of, The Jesus.

And as with the two aforementioned songs, The Gypsy Kings voices soon fade to reveal the music was playing directly out of the scene itself, through the bowling alley sound system.

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A great scene comes after Dude visits the "good and thorough" doctor Maude suggests him.




Dude is in good spirits: he's cruising home in his car (which he just recently recovered after it was stolen and impounded), he's smoking a joint, he's drinking a beer, and  he's blasting the 1970s Creedence Clearwater Revival song, "Lookin' out My Back Door."  The song choice for this scene is pretty clear.  For one, it would have been a song that Dude would have likely listened to in his youth, since the dates coincide, and we can see from the scene that he is obviously a fan.  But at a slightly deeper level, the song fits perfectly for the situation at hand. The lyrics begin:

Just got home from Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy!
Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch.
Imagination sets in, pretty soon I'm singin',
"Doo, doo, doo." Lookin' out my back door.

The lyrics then go on to describe some pretty psychedelic imagery as seen, "looking out my back door."  Whether the song itself is actually about drugs is irrelevant because its lyrics just fit in so well with the Dude's character and the scene its used in.  Dude is heading home and he's ready for some relaxation as the intro lyrics suggest.  However, Dude is smoking a joint (he's actually just about finished), so we can logically assume he's feeling SOMETHING.  Marijuana is known to create paranoia in some people who let their imaginations get the best of them (who needs a source?) so I find it pretty hilarious that Dude finds himself being followed, while he's likely pretty high (you can clearly see it in his eyes).  At first glance of the tailing car Dude seems to just shrug it off probably thinking something like, "Well, I am pretty high, I must just be paranoid."  But as he looks back again to see the car followed him into an alley the Dude freaks, tosses the remains of the drugs, only to realize the window was closed (stoner moment), and then proceeds to crash his already wrecked car.

When the camera pans out to show the crashed car the volume of the music decreases, then comes back to full as we rejoin Dude in the car, again suggesting that Creedence was not playing OVER the scene, but IN the scene, through the car stereo.  Dude then notices the blue beetle which was following him was no where to be seen, perhaps he just imagined it to be following him? Well, no, we find out later that Dude was in fact being tailed by a private detective, who was coincidentally, also tasked with finding Bunny Lebowski.  Which on a side note creates a great scene later on in the movie between the "brother Shamus" and Dude which adds much to the noir genre the film shares, but an analysis on that scene is for another entry...

The song's ending, featuring a nice tempo change, is used to emphasize Dude's discovery of Larry Seller's failed homework assignment.  I personally love Dude's eyes during these last moments of the scene, he just seems to have the most confused look on his face.  I would too if I randomly found a kid's homework in my car...

As we know, Dude is the victim of several "dream sequences" in the film.  One of which occurs after he is drugged by Jackie Treehorn.  In this scene Dude is the star of his own "porno(?)" if you can call it that, and Maude is his costar.  He's even wearing the same uniform as Karl Hungus in "Logjammin'," in which Bunny starred.  This is a cool scene because it features a lot of symbolism taken from previous moments in the film, which are now being taken by Dude's brain and interpreted into this acid trip of a dream sequence.

The song choice here is pretty self explanatory.  The backing track for the "Gutterballs" music video(?) is, "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" sung by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.  The song itself is about an acid trip, just listen to the words, no need to type them here.  But as Wikipedia says (a truly great source for this kind of thing), the song was written not as a call for people to take LSD, as was The Beatles' "Come Together," but as a warning of the dangers of tripping on the drug.  Dude says explicitly in the film that he enjoys the occasional acid flashback, so the fact that this song was the one playing in his dream sequence makes sense.  However, going along with the message of the song, things turn bad as the song ends and Dude gets pulled into a "bad trip".  As Dude frantically runs from the giant scissors trying to cut off his Johnson we realize that Dude was actually running in the street.  Obviously it was all just a sort of hallucination caused by whatever Treehorn knocked him out with.  But again, as with all of the previous songs I've mentioned in this entry, Kenny Rogers was not singing to lend some background noise to this scene, but the song was literally a part of the whole sequence itself, as it was a creation of Dude's imagination! Great huh?

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Well, I've have only glazed the surface in looking closer into the music of The Big Lebowski.  But I invite you fans to take another look, and another listen, and try to think about why the Coen Bros would have approved the rest of the music used in the film.  The official soundtrack itself contains 14 songs, and a pretty eclectic variety at that, a lot of genres, which like I said earlier, is expected in a noir film.

Buy The Soundtrack!

And be sure to check back to my blog for future interesting thoughts on this brilliant movie.