Music Review:
MUSIC FROM THE BRIDGE: A SOUNDTRACK FOR THE MOVIE IN YOUR MIND by John Skipp and Craig Spector
Review by Paul V. Wargelin

Who would have guessed that the authors dubbed “Splatterpunks” for their graphic depictions of violence in their novels would create Top 40-sounding pop songs? The novel that inspired this soundtrack, The Bridge, includes a list of albums John Skipp and Craig Spector listened to while writing the book—including The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band, The Police’s Synchronicity, and Tears for Fears’ Songs from the Big Chair—so in retrospect I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Actually, there are only five songs here. Skipp’s “Big Dumb Bastard” is a dirty blues number, propelled by catchy guitars and a blistering blues harp courtesy of Spector. Delivered in gravelly voices, its lyrics recreate the book’s opening scene, introducing the “B.D.B.” who dumped the toxic waste:

Big dumb bastard stands at six-foot-four
Two hundred forty-seven pounds or more
Got a face like Elvis in his dyin’ days
Kinda bloated n’ nasty, kinda pasty n’ gray

And the chorus is infectious:

What an asshole
What an asshole
What a big dumb bastard

Spector’s “Changing World” and Skipp’s “Missing You” are two Top-40-esque love songs featuring vocals by Kim Eberly in addition to the authors’. Lyrically, neither song connects to the novel, while musically “Changing World” has a melodic motif that sounds similar to Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U.”

“No Future,” co-written by Spector, Brian Emrich, and Rob Morton, is a disco dirge about the dying Earth. Its pulsing backbeat conjures images of headbangers nodding in time to a techno funereal march:

Gaia lives, Gaia dies
No one hears when Gaia cries

Welcome to the gathering hive

No one here gets out alive

Skipp’s “We’ll Be Gone” is an emotional lament of ringing guitars and keyboards, and rich harmonies in direct contrast to its bitter lyrics:

Why’d we have to
assassinate the future?
Kinda hard to believe
we’d even try
Kiss your only future
Goodbye

The remaining thirteen tracks are atmospheric, keyboard and drum program-driven instrumentals, reminiscent of Goblin’s Dawn of the Dead and John Harrison’s Day of the Dead film scores (both of which are included on The Bridge’s album list), especially “The Bridge and the Storm,” “Burning Bridges,” “Overmind,” “Love and Pain,” and “Numbed and Waiting for the End.” All of these music pieces are effective and convey classic horror film spooky ambience. “Lullabye and Goodnight,” a quiet acoustic guitar melody, is a fitting coda to the album, invoking the novel’s last disturbing image.

Outside the context of the novel, Music from The Bridge will probably not resonate with listeners as a stand-alone album. But for fans of The Bridge, it is a fun listen and was undoubtedly a daring undertaking by Skipp and Spector to devise this experimental fusion of literature and music.


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