Nick Cave & Bryce Dessner Pen Title Track for Netflix’s ‘Train Dreams’

Nick Cave and The National’s Bryce Dessner have joined forces to compose the title track to the new Netflix film, Train Dreams.

The film, which premiered at Sundance in January, receives a wider release in November. Directed by Clint Bentley, it’s based on the 2011 novella by late author Denis Johnson, with Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy cast in main roles.

While Dessner composed the film’s score, his collaboration with Cave plays over the film’s end credits, having co-produced the track alongside Luis Almau.

“When we started thinking about making a song for the film, Nick felt like the perfect artist to do it,” Bentley said of Cave’s involvement. “It turns out that Train Dreams is one of his all-time favorite books, but he initially feared there wouldn’t be time to do something because he was getting ready to go on tour. 

“Then he watched the film and was inspired to write something and the whole thing came together really quickly.”

Bentley notes that while he was certain Cave would create something “beautiful and resonant,” he felt slight apprehension of the final result being something that captures the emotive tone of the film’s conclusion.

“But Nick and I were very much on the same page from the outset,” he explained. “He read some early lyrics to me that he was working on and I was just really a bit overwhelmed with the whole situation — I’ve been a fan of his for such a long time and there I was, not only having a really lovely conversation with him about life and art, but he was also reading lyrics to me that he was writing for a film I made. It was a really special moment.”

Train Dreams will be released to theatres on Nov. 7 ahead of a Netflix premiere two weeks later on Nov. 21. The film’s soundtrack will receive a digital release on Nov. 7 with a vinyl issue arriving the following week on Nov. 14.

Hear a preview of the Cave and Dessner’s “Train Dreams” below.