I’ve been thinking a lot lately about No Country for Old Men. I went to see it for the second time on Sunday, to give the subtleties of the dialogue and screenplay a second chance to rattle around in my brain. Simply haunting. I’ve always dug the Coen brothers, but this one takes it to a whole new level.

I don’t have anything new to say about the film, at least not now, at midnight on a weeknight, but I did want to share the beautiful Carter Burwell song that plays as the credits roll. Once the song started, I decided to sit through the credits until I saw what it was. Only two songs are listed, one of them a Mexican traditional, and this isn’t one of them.

Carter himself (here) tells us that there are only 16 minutes of music in the movie, almost six of which are this as-the-credits-roll song. A little searching turns up the song title and artist, but finding more than the short excerpt he posts on his site is very difficult. It’s not on iTunes, and there doesn’t seem to be a soundtrack for sale. In the end, I dug through the HTML around his flash player and found the link to the mp3, so you can listen to it without having to pay the $9 to see the movie again. Although that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

The song is called “Blood Trail.” As it fades in, you think it’s just someone walking through the sand. Then you realize it’s a bit too regular to be footsteps, but you’re still thinking about Tom Ed Bell’s dream to pay much attention. If you stand up and leave right away, you’re probably out of the theater before the guitar, bass, and drums come in around the 1:45 mark. That would be your loss.

Thanks Paul for the link to "Blood Trail". I also looked high and low for the soundtrack to no avail. I found this track particularly haunting and summed up the journey well.

Carter Burwell's work has always impressed me and I had to laugh recently when I went to check out the soundtrack for a film I'd just seen, because the music was so good-and yep, it was Carter again!
May he stay in the saddle a good long while.

-Acoustic59