Lennie Niehaus

While you can buy the Unforgiven soundtrack, it's probably not one of the soundtracks you're itching to get your hands on. It's no Purple Rain, Pulp Fiction, or Superfly.

And that's because there's not a whole lot of memorable music in this movie. Most of the music is utilized to highlight important filmic moments—but, honestly, many of the most important moments in the movie are shrouded in near-silence.

There is one exception, however, and that is the song called "Claudia's Theme" which Clint Eastwood composed along with Lennie Niehaus, who handled the score. While snippets of the song can be heard throughout the film, it's most prominent as a framing device—we hear it at the very beginning, and the very end.

The song starts out with a guitar only, slow and melancholy. It is the perfect song to introduce us to a guy out in the middle of nowhere who is almost "broken" (Will's wife is dead, his farm is struggling, etc.). In the middle of the song, the same melody continues but a full orchestra chimes in, adding some power to the lone guitar but still keeping things blue.

So why such a sad song? And why is it called "Claudia's Theme"? Well, for one, the very fact that a song named after Claudia (Will's dead wife) introduces the movie tells us that this is a movie about death, and about Will's past.

Hmm: Will's past and death—that's pretty much the film in a nutshell.

Will's journey is really a journey to become what he once was (a killer), and it's a journey that he more or less completes. However, it is important to note that he doesn't completely revert to his former lifestyle.

Put another way, you might say that even though Claudia, and the past she represents, is dead, she's not gone. She survives in the form of the song that dominates the film. In other words, the past comes back to be play a big part in the present, which is one of the film's biggest thematic concerns.