I feel like it's a void that needs to be filled.” That's the thing that actually lights me up, but on top of it, it's the thing I don't hear in general in movies. I love all that stuff, but I consider it filigree to a basic sense of song, and then if there's some arranged harmony, I'm a pretty happy camper. The classical music I like has beautiful, singable bits in it, while there's still all this rich texture going on-it's not just endless music tricks. I feel like all of the instrumental music I like, going way back, has a sense of song. There's one overarching thing, and it's my gripe about film music: most of it is either soundscape or just the sounds of orchestra we associate with a movie.

“I feel like the given scenes and intention of the film are the lyrics,” he says, “but I still want to hear a song. Maybe you're at your apartment, and you'll do some cleaning-up and leave the record on.” Vinyl doesn't even require that you pay attention. I think that is a bigger part of why people have an emotional experience with it. “I think the notable difference with vinyl is that you are more likely to listen to five songs in a row,” he says. Ever the audiophile, Brion is quick to note his scores weren’t intended for the vinyl medium-“so that precludes me from having too much excitement.” But he does concede that the format has its appeal. In addition to the Lady Bird score (released on limited-edition white vinyl from Fire Soundtracks and Lakeshore Records on Friday), the Austin-based label Mondo also recently pressed a three-disc version of Brion’s score for Magnolia. While Brion has been in the business for decades, a touch of fortuitous timing has turned the start of 2018 into a bit of a renaissance for his deeply felt work. At least that’s the composer’s position when it comes to the vinyl release of his score for Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s Oscar front-runner.

Sheet music for magnolia soundtrack