The original score was composed by Carter Burwell, who had worked with the Coen Brothers on Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), and Fargo (1996), and T Bone Burnett, who would go on to work with the Coen Brothers on O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). Burwell's composing style is pretty heavily influenced by Henry Mancini, the jazzy impresario behind the Pink Panther films. Burnett's is more folksy and old school, favoring the genres of rock and bluegrass.

The Score Abides

The Coens wanted the music of The Big Lebowski to be the music of the '60s and '70s, so there's plenty of Bob Dylan and the Eagles; you know, stuff dads listen to. They also wanted each character to have his or her own musical signature. The Dude gets Creedence Clearwater Revival (another dad band), the German nihilists get technopop, and Maude Lebowski gets eerie chanting.

Just Dropped In

Music is a powerful part of this movie because The Dude cares so much about it, and it's another way for the audience to get inside his head. The song most closely associated with The Big Lebowski is Kenny Rogers's "Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was In)." If you think the title is crazy, then just wait until you hear the lyrics: "I woke up this morning with the sundown shining in / I found my mind in a brown paper bag within." We don't think we need to spell it out for you: the song is about drugs.

Because of its psychedelic nature, "Just Dropped In" becomes the score for a dance sequence in The Big Lebowski. To set the scene: The Dude has just been drugged at the house of porn magnate Jackie Treehorn, and he dreams Gutterballs, a pseudo-porn film starring himself as a magical bowler and Maude Lebowski as a Viking woman.

Gutterballs isn't sexually explicit, although it does feature some lewd behavior on The Dude's part. It's notable because it's all about the music and features a lot of elaborate choreography and costumes. It's meant to do two things: 1) pay homage to the work of Busby Berkeley, who directed many of the elaborate dance numbers in musicals from the 1940s and 1950s, and more importantly, 2) bring us deeper into the trippy world of The Dude's mind.