Make music, not war.

By Toby Saunders

Published: Tuesday, 16 April 2024 at 10:04 AM


If you’ve seen the Kirsten Dunst-starring film and enjoyed a track or two from its score, you’ll be keen on learning everything there is to know about the Civil War soundtrack.

Director Alex Garland calls his movie “a difficult film” and a feature where “the more the film says, the better” in an exclusive interview with us here at RadioTimes.com, but it is also a film where music plays an important role.

If you’ve seen A24’s latest, you may have thought some of its music choices to be a little strange, but that’s sort of the point according to a Q&A session at SXSW (thanks, SlashFilm!).

Explaining the use of a De La Soul track in one of the film’s pivotal scenes, Garland argued that: “Contemporary music didn’t work… It created a bit of a funny messaging that hurt the film.”

He added “that De La Soul track had a particular function, which was to be jarring and aggressive, and to speak somehow to the perverse pleasure in what was happening, but not to actually be seductive”.

Each song was chosen with the utmost attention to detail, then, “to make this not seem like a good idea to have a civil war, but a bad idea”.

Read on for the full list of songs in the Civil War soundtrack, and to find out who composed the film and where you can listen to its tracks.

Civil War soundtrack: Full list of songs

The full list of songs in the Civil War soundtrack is as follows:

  • Lovefingers performed by Silver Apples
  • Rocket USA performed by Suicide
  • Say No Go performed by De La Soul
  • Sweet Little Sister performed by Skid Row
  • Breakers Roar performed by Sturgill Simpson
  • Dream Baby Dream – Single Edit performed by Suicide

These are the named tracks by other artists included in the film, anyway. You’ll also hear original music composed for the movie while watching, but who composed the score? More on that below.

Who composed the Civil War soundtrack?

The Civil War soundtrack was composed by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. Both composers have worked with director Alex Garland before on other films including Men and Annihilation.

Barlow and Salisbury have also worked together to compose Ex Machina, Free Fire, TV shows Devs and Hanna, and more.

On top of the film’s score being composed by the pair, the Civil War soundtrack features a selection of pre-existing songs by other artists. Tracks from Silver Apples, Suicide, De La Soul, Skid Row and Sturgill Simpson all feature.