Jim Jarmusch is one of the the most important figures in American independent cinema, but in a sense his legacy belongs as much to the world of music as it does to film. From the brawny vigor of Down By Law to the sun-bleached drones of The Limits of Control, it’s difficult to conceive of a Jarmusch film sounding any other way—you get the sense that he’d sooner recast his leads than switch out the soundtrack.
Somehow, though, it’s taken Jarmusch thirty years and ten features to make a film that centers around a musician: Only Lovers Left Alive, his latest release, which stars Tom Hiddleston as a vampire who whiles away his evenings laying down densely layered acid-rock demos in his room. This psychedelic noodling forms the foundation of the picture, though for Jarmusch it's hardly a change of pace. It’s merely another one of his films in which music is the lifeblood.
Only Lovers Left Alive hits select theaters today, and how better to celebrate than by assembling a mixtape of Jim Jarmusch tunes? Check out our picks below, and listen along with our Jim Jarmusch Spotify playlist.
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: “I Put a Spell on You” (from Stranger Than Paradise)
Jarmusch’s bone-dry 1984 comedy Stranger Than Paradise tells the story of Willie (John Lurie), a bohemian loafer tasked with babysitting his teenage Hungarian cousin, Eva (Eszter Balint), when she shows up at his doorstep one afternoon. Eva has only one apparent interest: the fittingly idiosyncratic sounds of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' “I Put a Spell on You”, played more or less nonstop on a portable tape deck she treats like her prized possession. When Willie returns home one evening to find her swooning over the song in his kitchen, he quickly shuts off the tape and dismisses her taste in music. Eva fires off a retort in broken English as if she’s rehearsed it: “It’s Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and he’s a wild man, so bug off.” It isn’t hard to imagine whose side the film takes.
Tom Waits: “Jockey Full of Bourbon” (from Down By Law)
“Mr. Jarmusch's movies have the tempo and rhythm of blues and jazz," the film critic Vincent Canby once wrote. It’s an apt comparison, but a better one still might be to the music of Tom Waits: As on his records of smokey intrigue and late-night longing, traces of jazz and blues are recognizable, but the total effect is distinct. It should hardly be surprising, then, that Jarmusch and Waits have over the years become practically synonymous. Their professional relationship began with Down By Law, a low-key picaresque in which Waits stars as a late-night radio DJ convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. It takes only seconds for Jarmusch to betray his affection for his new star: The film opens, quite iconically, with Waits’s “Jockey Full of Bourbon”, culled from the legendary Rain Dogs.
Tom Waits: “Back in the Good Old World” (from Night on Earth)
In some ways, Night on Earth was a summation of Jarmusch’s first 20 years as a filmmaker. It found him revisiting many of the themes explored in his first three features, travelling the world for a full dose of the international quality he’d cultivated previously, and proved he could take the vignette format he’d long flirted with to its logical conclusion. To that end, the choice of soundtrack is entirely appropriate: Jarmusch commissioned Waits once again, though for the first time his contributions are original (the Night on Earth score, as it happens, doubles as a very fine standalone Waits album). The ballad that closes the picture, “Back in the Good Old World”, feels tailor-made for the touching scene that precedes it, whisking us away from tragedy with much-needed grace and beauty.
Neil Young: “Guitar Solo No. 5” (from Dead Man)
Roger Ebert once said that Neil Young’s Dead Man score "sounds like nothing so much as a man repeatedly dropping his guitar," but, thankfully, time has been considerably kinder. Largely improvised and performed alone by Young on an electric guitar, this is movie music as pure impressionism, swaths of sound designed not so much to capture the look of the film as to evoke its overall feeling. Jarmusch soundtracks often have a certain curatorial quality, suggesting the almost academic rigor of a lifelong enthusiast. But here he goes one step beyond simply brandishing his own good taste: He instead opts for trust, walking away from the record collection and instead putting faith in the power of a truly original composition. The results evidently alienated critics more accustomed to the conventions of the Hollywood score. And yet the music achieved its purpose: Even twenty years later, nothing sounds like this.
Kool G Rap and RZA: “Cakes” (from Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai)
Few musicians know the sounds and the spirit of the samurai film as intimately as the Wu-Tang Clan, so it made sense that Jarmusch summoned RZA for Ghost Dog's soundtrack. Naturally, Wu-related cuts abound, but it’s some of the more surprising contributions that prove most rewarding, like Kool G's “Cakes”. The result is a soundtrack that, while unique among Jarmusch’s filmography, may in fact be the best, deeply attuned to the character and tenor of the picture. Rarely is a film so enriched by its music.
The Stooges: “Down on the Street” (from Coffee and Cigarettes)
Let it be known that Jarmusch is not above using a musical cue as a gag: In 2003's Coffee and Cigarettes that honor belongs to the Stooges' “Down on the Street”, whose appearance on a coffee shop’s jukebox in the middle of the film is the subtle punchline to a joke set up scenes earlier. During a segment called “Somewhere in California”—originally filmed in 1993 and recycled for use in the expanded feature—Iggy Pop gently teases Tom Waits about not being included on a diner’s jukebox roster, which for these guys is apparently the ultimate insult. When Iggy leaves, Waits hurries over to the machine to inspect it for himself, before remarking, with a satisfied sneer, that at least Iggy isn’t on there either. The later cut to “Down on the Street” is Iggy’s vindication: It may have taken a decade, but the Stooges are finally scoring diners.
Boris: “Farewell” (from The Limits of Control)
According to Jarmusch, the music of The Limits of Control “both inspired the film and, like passing clouds, shaped and shaded its sonic atmosphere.” No kidding. The film is a veritable feature-length music video for Boris, who contributed six songs to the soundtrack, including cuts from their collaborative albums with Sunn 0))) and Michio Kurihara, an excerpt from Feedbacker, and, best of all, “Farewell”, the opening track from Pink. The film also features a number of tracks by Jarmusch’s own band, Bad Rabbit (who have since changed their name to SQURL), material on very much the same wavelength. Certainly this music influenced the vibe of the film: The atmosphere, if you could see it, would be Pink.