(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Trent Reznor might have risen to prominence as the lead vocalist in Nine Inch Nails, but he has since become prolific in the world of film music, too.
He composed his first full-length score with Atticus Ross in 2010 for David Fincher’s The Social Network, and the pair have since collaborated with the director on other projects such as Gone Girl and Mank. They’ve also frequently partnered with Luca Guadagnino for the likes of Queer and Challengers, asserting themselves as cinema’s premium composers.
Yet, before he was the acclaimed film composer he has inevitably become, Reznor dipped his toes into the world of movie music with two projects in the 1990s. After composing a few songs for Natural Born Killers, the musician was then tasked with producing the soundtrack for David Lynch’s Lost Highway.
An endlessly confusing film that is easily Lynch’s most erotically-charged, Lost Highway is mainly soundtracked by industrial and sleazy rock sounds, which reflect the film’s dark and brooding atmosphere. Set against a background of late Los Angeles nights, the soundtrack needed to emulate the danger and mystery of the film, and Reznor perfectly encapsulated this with contributions from frequent Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti as well as musicians like David Bowie, Lou Reed and Marilyn Manson.
The movie opens with Bowie’s ‘I’m Deranged’, the perfect start to a mind-bending movie that pulls you into a world of guilt and obsession. In between these intense musical numbers – who can forget the moments when Rammstein kicks in or Alice strips to Manson’s cover of ‘I Put a Spell on You’? – deeply atmospheric instrumental pieces maintain the film’s tension.
Yet, one of the greatest musical moments of the film comes at the end as Fred speeds away, chased by police, and as the day turns to night, the intensity of the scene only heightens with Reznor’s electrifying composition ‘Driver Down’. The film reaches its climax as light flashes and Fred’s head violently shakes – is this meant to represent Fred being killed in the electric chair? – and the music provides an exhilarating end.
When Reznor was asked to compose a piece for the scene, he wasn’t given a visual aid to work with – Lynch just described an abstract idea and encouraged him to use his imagination. And it worked. Talking to Rolling Stone, Reznor described his meeting with Lynch. “So we set up a weekend for him to come to my place in New Orleans. At first it was like the most high-pressure situation ever. It was literally one minute, ‘Hi, I’m David Lynch,’ and he’s cooler than I even imagined he would be. Three minutes later, he’s saying: ‘Well, let’s go in the studio and get started.’”
Once they were in the studio, Reznor was left with just Lynch’s instructions and his own creativity to come up with something. “Then he’d describe a scene and say, ‘Here’s what I want. Now, there’s a police car chasing Fred down the highway, and I want you to picture this: There’s a box, OK? And in this box there’s snakes coming out; snakes whizzing past your face. So, what I want is the sound of that – the snakes whizzing out of the box – but it’s got to be like impending doom.’ And he hadn’t brought any footage with him. He says, ‘OK, OK, go ahead. Give me that sound.’”
Evidently, this method of working suited Reznor well, and the result was a terrific soundtrack to one of Lynch’s most compelling films.
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