In 2009, Nick Cave published The Death Of Bunny Munro, a darkly comic novel about a sex-addicted salesman. I read it for work, and I hated it. When The Death Of Bunny Munro first came out, Cave and his frequent collaborator Warren Ellis scored the audiobook. Now, The Death Of Bunny Munro has been adapted into a TV show, and Cave and Ellis did a completely different soundtrack for that, too.
Imagine writing a book and then making its soundtrack twice. That must feel nice. You must feel like you’re excelling in all kinds of fields at once. Matt Smith, star of House Of The Dragon and Doctor Who, is the man behind Sky Studios’ new UK TV version of The Death Of Bunny Munro. Smith is both the series’ star and its executive producer. Today, Cave and Ellis release their score for the show.
Nick Cave does a lot of soundtrack work. Right now, he’s nominated for a Golden Globe and on the Oscar shortlist for “Train Dreams,” his end-credits song from the movie of the same name. Cave and Warren Ellis have done many film scores together, most recently the unfortunate 2024 Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black, and the aesthetic that they bring to The Death Of Bunny Munro is a familiar one. It’s slow and languid, it goes heavy on mournful strings, and it’s mostly instrumental. But there’s at least one track with vocals, a minute-long number called “Bunny Munro.” Cave gets loose on that one. Listen below.
