Media and Music: “The Crow” Soundtrack Does Darkness Right
A film that has accumulated a cult following since its 1994 release, “The Crow” is an intense watch accompanied by a soundtrack that will not only leave watchers with their ears ringing, but also with the sudden urge to invest in leather pants.
In Media and Music, our writers take a deep dive into how movies use scores and songs to engage viewers, give new meaning and tone to some of our favorite scenes, and establish themes. It almost goes without saying, but there are spoilers abound.
Written by Miranda Garza
Photos courtesy of Miramax Films
Based on the comic book series by James O’Barr, “The Crow” is a harrowing film that perfectly captures the rage, grief, and aftermath of personal tragedy within its memorable soundtrack.
The film follows rock musician Eric Draven, played by late actor Brandon Lee, who lost his life on set after a prop malfunction left him fatally wounded. In the story, Draven, alongside his fiance, is brutally murdered by a gang on the eve of their Halloween wedding. On the one-year anniversary of his death, he returns from the grave to exact revenge on those responsible, taking them out one-by-one and leaving nothing but the symbol of a crow in his wake. The dark subject matter of “The Crow” embeds itself within every element of the soundtrack, smoothly immersing the audience in Draven’s macabre anti-hero journey. Its songs never feel excessive or forced.
With the majority of its soundtrack written specifically for the film, “The Crow” features songs that emulate each scene and character in a way that feels personal to them. As a long-time fan of the Cure, O’Barr quoted various lyrics throughout the comic books, including those from the song “The Hanging Garden,” which was originally intended to play in the film. However, the Cure’s frontman, Robert Smith, took such a liking to the comics that he wanted to contribute an original song for the film. Within the span of two days, he and drummer Borris Williams wrote and recorded “Burn.”
The Cure’s “Burn” marks Draven’s dark transformation at the start of the film, when he returns home for the first time and pieces together the memories of his past life. Menacing instrumentals slowly fade into the scene before unleashing a wall of sound. When a distraught Draven punches his vanity mirror, his swing perfectly aligns with the drum's beat. Short vibrations of the electric guitar shred back and forth in a tug of war between sonics.The chorus is met with sharp acoustic strings that mimic the melody, reflective of Draven's moral dilemma, before he ultimately gives in to his dark desires of revenge. By mirroring the gloomy undertones of the scene, the use of "Burn" builds a subtle yet overarching connection between Draven’s grief-stricken motivations and the track's eerie instrumentals. The song continues with lyrics parallel to the scene, with the lines, “Just paint your face, the shadow smiles / Slipping me away from you,” sung as Draven coats his face in white paint and details black lines over his eyes and mouth, resembling a clown mask from a distant memory. Smith belts each verse with vindication and longing, creating a close reflection of the protagonist's remembrance of the life he once had.
Carefully contemplating his next move, Draven stalks the city from a rainy rooftop until a crow, which acts as somewhat of a spirit guide for the vigilante, leads him to his first victim. As he races across the city's skyline, a Nine Inch Nails industrial rock rendition of Joy Division’s “Dead Souls” fills the silence. The low, strained vocals of lead singer Trent Reznor slowly intensify with the sharp riffs of an electric guitar, adding a suspenseful tension to the scene. The drum-heavy track also uses the depth of its bass lines to illustrate the gritty atmosphere of the city after hours.
In a dark alleyway, Draven confronts Tin Tin, his first kill and one of the gang members responsible for his death. After violently interrogating him, Draven takes his life, sticking Tin Tin's knives into the criminal's own "major organs in alphabetical order" before leaving nothing but the bloody drawing of a crow and disappearing into the night. He isn’t seen again until Sarah, a girl his fiance used to babysit, chases her skateboard into the street and nearly gets hit by a car. This scene shows Draven's rare compassionate side, as he saves the young girl from harm’s way before vanishing once again.
The heavily charged melody of “Golgotha Tenement Blues” by Machines of Loving Grace fills the air as Draven patiently waits outside the apartment of his next victim, Funboy. The track's slow beat and chugging riffs blend together and emulate a sullen sound reminiscent of a sure-footed predator hunting its prey. The solemn atmosphere of the instrumentals gradually builds, preserving the scene’s suspense, which any fast-paced beat would have overlooked. Draven climbs inside through the window, his presence announced by the track’s isolated electric guitar, before he meets Funboy and Sarah’s mother, Darla. The song continues throughout Draven’s graphic interrogations, which ultimately ends with Funboy’s needle-filled demise and an etching of another bloody crow. Meanwhile, the antihero warns Darla to be a better mother before she frantically heads home.
Draven continues the same avenging routine with gang member T-Bird, strapping the man to his own explosive-filled car before detonating it. Once again, a fire burning in the shape of a crow is all that Draven leaves behind. To his dismay, his final victim escapes the scene and seeks shelter in the second story of a seedy nightclub where the rest of the gang members and their gothic leader, Top Dollar, plot their schemes. Crowded and disheveled, the club's lower level resembles nothing more than a sea of sweaty bodies as a performance of “After the Flesh” by electro-rock band My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult rages on. The band's harsh and aggressive sound, paired with flashing lights and a thrashing audience, captures the mounting chaos of the film. The speedy riffs and gravelly vocals of "After the Flesh" frame the city's late night tendencies of excess and gluttony with careful precision, serving as a precursor to the adrenaline-filled scene that follows a quiet meeting between Top Dollar and his henchmen. Moments later, the energetic tempo of the track returns to backdrop the violent sequence of a gunfight as Draven storms into the gang's lair to demand that Top Dollar hand over his final victim. The shootout ends in a hail of bullets and blood, with Draven unleashing his wrath on the last man responsible for killing and raping his fiance.
After completing his revenge spiral, Draven returns to his grave, but stops his un-resurrection abruptly when his feathered friend, the crow, signals that Top Dollar kidnapped Sarah in retaliation for Draven's crony killing spree. The film’s final scene portrays the men's epic rooftop battle, dramatized with swords and pounding rain against an accelerating drum beat. A flute’s haunting whistle fills the air as the brutal fight ends with Top Dollar impaled on a church gargoyle. Draven walks out victorious, and Sarah emerges unscathed. After a grim and gory hour and a half, the film ends happily with Draven and his fiance reuniting at his grave. A collection of uplifting strings creates a supernatural harmony that sees the two off as they pass on to the afterlife.
The film’s end is met with the soft chimes of “It Can’t Rain All The Time” by Jane Siberry, a track referenced throughout the film as one of Draven’s own songs. Unlike any other song on the soundtrack, “It Can’t Rain All the Time” delivers lyrics of hope, as Siberry sings, “Oh, it won’t rain all the time / The sky won’t fall forever / And although the night seems long / Your tears won’t fall forever.” A gentle pluck of strings plays over Lee’s dedication and the ending credits, bringing a bittersweet finale to the film and tears to the audience’s eyes.
Soundtracks featuring darker and edgier music often struggle to balance a film's ominous atmosphere with its authentic grit, a failure that can undermine a film's musical nuances and result in a sense of overkill to some viewers. “The Crow'' avoids this mistake by illustrating the complex depths of Eric Draven’s emotional turmoil with angsty lyrics and introspective instrumentals to match. While the "The Crow" soundtrack carefully mirrors the film, it never dramatizes it, instead adding another thoughtful dimension to the comic book's movie adaptation. The film’s dark collection of tracks, along with Lee’s stellar performance, are among the reasons fans flocked to it at the time of its release. And in the decades following, these features remain a signature of the cult classic, just like Draven's trademark crow etchings.