HARD TIMES POST RIDGEMONT HIGH
A spotlight on The Sean Penn Soundtrack Universe.
ABOUT THIS MIX
It’s November 2025 and Sean Penn is having a moment, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska is having a moment, and here at Celluloid Noise HQ we are meeting those moments with a block celebrating The Sean Penn Soundtrack Universe (SPSU), which is rooted in the Nebraska mythology.
The Big Bang event of the SPSU happened back in 1981, during the filming of the coming-of-age classic Fast Times At Ridgemont High, where Sean Penn introduced all of America to the Surfer Bro archetype with his breakthrough performance as Jeff Spicoli.
Sure the movie had it’s the Springsteen Easter eggs, mostly in the form of Brad Hamilton with his Springsteen Bumper Sticker and the Jersey Devil t-shirt he’s sporting when he thwarts an attempted robbery at the Mi-T-Mart. But the biggest Boss easter egg of them all comes in the closing credits, when we learn that Pep Rally Cheerleader known as Dina Phillips is played by one Pamela Springsteen, Bruce’s youngest sister.
Young love did its thing and Penn found himself engaged to and living with Pam at the time when Bruce sent his baby sister some demos of the yet to be released Nebraska. The seeds for the SPSU were planted.
Penn had become extremely taken with the song “Highway Patrolman,” and with the assistance of some liquid courage placed a call to The Boss and personally asked if he could adapt it into a movie, which would ultimately become The Indian Runner.
The Penn/Springsteen soundtrack pairing lasted way longer than the Penn/Springsteen romantic pairing, seeing Bruce and Sean connected by song and screen well into the 1990s.
Eventually Eddie Vedder and Bruce Springsteen must have had a Freaky Friday incident at a urinal trough at a Dead Man Walking press event, where Bruce wished himself able to depart the SPSU as Vedder willed himself into the orbit.
While this playlist doesn’t exactly scream “Hey Bud, Let’s Party!”, it plays well in November —as families huddle-up for Thanksgiving — and it carries a consistent throughline: Sean Penn gathering friends and loved ones to make complex films about family, supported by equally collaborative soundtracks.
LINER NOTES
Highway Patrolman - Bruce Springsteen
The source material for Sean Penn’s directorial debut, The Indian Runner. Penn does a pretty faithful retelling of the song, complete with character names, backstories, and even shooting locations in Nebraska. David Morse and a young Viggo Mortenson play the embattled Joe and Frank Roberts. Penn’s inspired casting choices included a young Patricia Arquette, Charles Bronson and Sandy Dennis, Dennis Hopper, and novelist Harry Crews. Penn tells Soundtracking with Edit Bowman how a copious amount of Heinekens played a role in getting The Boss’s initial blessing.
Missing - Bruce Springsteen
Written in the wake of his Oscar win for “Streets of Philadelphia,” Bruce went back to the well of using drum loops and synths with the intention of fleshing out a full length album of that ilk. The exotic vibe of this song, with its congas, wah-wah drenched guitars, and noir keyboards is a perfect fit for the title sequence of Sean Penn’s The Crossing Guard. It’s as close as a James Bond theme we will get from Bruce Springsteen. The track was eventually released as a single in Europe, and a bonus track on The Essential Bruce Springsteen, and in my opinion, should have been included on the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions disc of the Tracks II The Lost Albums.
Dead Man Walkin’ - Bruce Springsteen
Written from the POV of an inmate on death row awaiting his execution. I kind of dig the approach Bruce took here, as I assumed the song would have taken on the slow paced contemplative tone from “Nebraska,” but instead Springsteen turns in a a rather succinct portrait of a man ready to accept his fate. Now that we got the formalities out of the way, let’s talk about the fact that Bruce used the same photo as his cover art for both “Missing,” and “Dead Man Walkin’.” The cowboy hat and the 90s Major League Baseball goatee, a look I like to call “Lucky Town Goes West.”
Dead Man - Pearl Jam
Eddie’s introductory anecdote from the Dead Man Walking: The Concert from 1998 explains that Tim Robbins seated this song at the kid’s table almost immediately due to the above Springsteen contribution. So I sent him the song and said ‘Here’s this song, and it's called “Dead Man Walking”, and he said, ‘Oh, I got a song from Bruce, and it’s called “Dead Man Walking,” and I kinda gotta use his….it’s a seniority thing.’ Vedder adds that they got a b-side out of it, and a haunting b-side it is.
Rise Up - Eddie Vedder
(David Byrne singing voice) And you may ask yourself - is Eddie Vedder’s cover of “Hide Your Love Away,” from the I Am Sam soundtrack part of the Sean Penn Soundtrack Universe? Not on my watch, but if your ears squint a little bit, “Rise Up,” is almost distant cousin of the Lennon cover, and if I had an intern, I would make them cut a mash-up of the songs together to prove my point.
I Think of Angels - Cat Power
Mirroring Penn’s own method of heavy collaboration with friends and family, the Flag Day soundtrack sees Vedder dipping into both friends and family to round out this record, with contributions from his own daughter, and frequent collaborators Glen Hansard and Chan Marshall. Here we have Marshall coveringa song from Icelandic musician KK. From Iceland Review: The song pays tribute to the KK’s late sister, Inger, who died in a car crash in America in 1992. “I Think of Angels” was officially released in 1995 on the album Gleðifólkið. The song is often performed at funerals in Iceland.
Live To Tell - Madonna
In 1985 Madonna began working with musician/producer Patrick Leonard, who also doubled as the Muscial Director of her Like A Virgin Tour. Leonard originally wrote the music of “Live To Tell,” for the 1986 basic cable staple Fire With Fire, but the studio rejected it. Madonna offered to write and record some lyrics for it and suggested sharing it with Penn, who was filming At Close Range at the time. After hearing it, Penn arranged for Madonna to meet with Range Director, James Foley, and the rest is Torch Song history.
Dream Baby Dream - Bruce Springsteen
Inspired by Will Oldham waxing poetic about the unrealized potential of “Nebraska,” on WTF w/ Marc Maron, this Suicide cover seemed like a good bookend to close out this mix. One of my favorite scenes from Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere was Bruce laying down what might have been the first known existence of The Frankie Teardrop Challenge, so this cinematic cover of “Dream Baby Dream,” seemed like a fitting track to roll credits on the SPSU.
