The Playlist: Morvern Callar's Walkman of the Soul

Morvern Callar, dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2002

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Morvern Callar ’s Walkman of the Soul

Cosmic rock and avant-garde jazz tracks from Lynne Ramsay’s cult film and the novel on which it’s based

By Robert Bound
May 13, 2025

Morvern Callar’s inner world is in her ear. In Alan Warner’s 1995 novel, there are many musical references (“I put Iron Path by Last Exit on the record player turned up to 8”) and entire compilation cassettes created by Morvern for the specific task of, say, dismembering the corpse of her former boyfriend, which will require a strong constitution, hessian sacking and some complex arpeggios from Miles Davis and Sonny Sharrock. Lynne Ramsay’s 2002 film adaptation of the book charts the spending and misspending of youth—all suggested in music. Ramsay’s Morvern, played by Samantha Morton, observes the film’s action as though rendered deaf, being so often in tune with, or in thrall to, the sounds of her Walkman. Could Morvern love music as much as smoking cigarettes (“I use the goldish lighter on a Silk Cut”) or getting mortal on Southern Comfort and lemonades? Oh yeah.

“Our acceptance of Morvern’s depth is encouraged by the pleasure she takes in absorbing this chewy, avant-garde music.”

The film’s official soundtrack is a neat encapsulation of music from the movie, including 1960s cuts by the Velvet Underground and the Mamas & the Papas, as well as tracks from Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada that dropped in the few years between the publishing of the novel and the feature’s release. This is some blissfully wishful musical furniture-arranging, akin to the sound of ecstasy and acid finding a warm couch on which to snuggle up, post-sesh, with those hoary old classics, heroine and hash. Despite having little in common with the musically literate novel on which it’s based, the Morvern Callar film soundtrack is a classic and a party piece for those of a certain disposition.

The book-music, perhaps appropriately for a novel that contains a lot of post-ceilidh “boaking up” (look it up), is a proper spewing out: of band names, subgenres, titles of bootleg rave compilations, albums and styles. Perhaps in his honor, Morvern mostly soundtracks her life with her dead boyfriend’s music. This was a boyfriend who was clearly a sensitive soul, who soundtracked the building of his ill-fated model railway and the writing of his better-fated novel with German kosmisch from Can, Cameroonian bikutsi from Les Têtes Brulées and the more obstreperously “high” work of Miles Davis—with a bit of Cameo and REM chucked in for luck. Our acceptance of Morvern’s depth and intelligence is encouraged by the pleasure she takes in absorbing this chewy, avant-garde music into her windswept and ordinary life. Perhaps it’s no such thing; simply extraordinary.

Our Morvern Callar playlist is taken mostly from music mentioned in the novel, sprinkled with a few memorable moments from the film and a couple of outliers that just might have been playing in a Highland port-town bar named the Mantrap or a Brits-abroad nightclub in Spain circa 1992. Music is Morvern Callar’s sword and shield: It’s a vibe.