“When we started thinking about making a song for the film, Nick felt like the perfect artist to
do it,” says director Clint Bentley
Nick Cave and the National’s Bryce Dessner have teamed up for the title track to Train Dreams, the upcoming Netflix film.
The song, which you can hear a snippet of below, features Cave’s vocals across Dessner’s wistful piano. The duo co-wrote the track, and produced it alongside Luis Almau. Dessner also composed the score, marking his second time working with director Clint Bentley (they first collaborated on 2021’s Jockey).
Train Dreams stars Joel Edgerton as a railroad laborer, and also features Felicity Jones and William H. Macy. Adapted from Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella, the Oscar contender arrives in theaters on Nov. 7 and hits the streaming platform on Nov. 21. The soundtrack will be released digitally on Nov. 7, and on vinyl on Nov. 14.
“When we started thinking about making a song for the film, Nick felt like the perfect artist to
do it,” Bentley said in a statement. “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 says that he was “blown away” but the track, but admitted he was also “a bit overwhelmed” by the 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,” he said. “It was a really special moment.”
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He added that Cave and Dessner’s collaboration felt seamless. “They were both very open artistically in the process,” he said. “The piano music that Bryce laid down as the bed of the song feels like an extension of the gorgeous score he created and then Nick’s lyrics just seem to grow organically out of that. It all just feels so natural and of a whole, because of that collaboration they found.”
Cave is currently overseas on tour with the Bad Seeds; he recently wrapped his North American trek last spring, which included a stop at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in April. The band released their most recent album, Wild God, in 2024.
