A sample of what can be heard in director Wes Anderson’s upcoming offering, Asteroid City, is available now.
Videos by American Songwriter
The song “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)” is one of the movie soundtrack’s two original tunes by Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker. The English art rock band’s frontman can be heard singing on the track alongside Jean Yves Lozac’h, Perè Mallén, Preston George Mota, Rupert Friend, and Seu Jorge.
Aside from Cocker’s original tunes – the second of which is titled “You Can’t Wake Up If You Don’t Fall Asleep” – the soundtrack will also feature songs by Tex Ritter, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Les Paul & Mary Ford, and others sprinkled into a score by Alexandre Desplat.
“Wes and I had so much fun putting the film’s music together,” the film’s music supervisor Randall Poster shared in a statement (via Stereogum). “We’ve been doing these soundtracks for almost 30 years and have the benefit of that continuity of collaboration. We’re expanding our music horizons whenever he makes a new movie.”
When it came to Asteroid City, Poster explained he and the director had been “hunting and gathering for a year before shooting began,” becoming familiar with the country-western sound that can be heard on “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)” and throughout the film. “[Country & Western] had more to do with the movies than anything else and we were kind of instinctively drawn to one song or another,” the supervisor detailed. “Our mindset was to spread the wings of Western Swing and see what we discover.”
This is not Cocker’s first foray into the world of Wes Anderson. In the past, he’s lent his talents to the soundtrack and one of the characters in the 2009 film Fantastic Mr. Fox. He also contributed to a role in the 2021 film The French Dispatch. In Asteroid City, he will make another cameo, playing a cowboy alongside the film’s star-studded cast, which includes stars like Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Jeff Goldblum, and many more.
Asteroid City, along with its soundtrack, is set for release on Friday (June 23). Until then, get a taste of what’s to come with “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)” below.
(Photo: Rough Trade Records)
