The powerful music in Peaky Blinders does more than just play in the background. From the very first scene, songs by artists like Nick Cave, Arctic Monkeys, and Radiohead have been a key part of the show’s storytelling. These tracks add deep emotion, build tension, and give us a look inside the characters’ minds. Here are eleven times the show proved its soundtrack is just as important as its story.
When Tommy Shelby first rode his horse through the slums of 1920s Birmingham, the show’s musical identity was born. The choice to use modern rock and alternative music in a period drama was a bold one. Creator Steven Knight and the team did not want to just recreate history. They wanted to make the past feel immediate, aggressive, and emotionally raw. This approach turned the soundtrack into a window into Tommy’s troubled mind.
The Iconic Theme: Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand’
You cannot talk about Peaky Blinders without talking about Nick Cave. His song ‘Red Right Hand’ became the show’s musical heartbeat from the very first episode. Its slow, threatening tone perfectly matched the dangerous world of the Shelbys.
Cillian Murphy, who plays Tommy Shelby, once admitted he thought using modern music was a bad idea. After hearing ‘Red Right Hand,’ he knew he was wrong. He later called Nick Cave the “musical talisman” for the entire series.
The song was so powerful that the show began featuring different cover versions by artists like Arctic Monkeys and PJ Harvey. Murphy himself said his favorite cover was the one by Iggy Pop and Jarvis Cocker in season four. The theme set a standard. It showed that every song needed to carry weight and add a layer of meaning to the action on screen.
Setting the Mood with The White Stripes
In the first season, the raw garage-rock sound of The White Stripes was used to show Tommy’s rebellious nature. Tracks like ‘I Smell a Cat’ and ‘The Hardest Button to Button’ played during moments of conflict and police raids. The music’s aggressive guitar and drums matched the rising tension in Birmingham’s streets.
One analysis points out that the song ‘The Hardest Button to Button,’ which is about a child being ignored, mirrors Tommy’s own childish and defiant response to authority. This careful matching of lyric to scene showed how the music was chosen for more than just its sound. It was chosen for its story.
The Raw Power of Brummie Legends: Black Sabbath
It was only a matter of time before the show featured music from Black Sabbath, the legendary heavy metal band from Birmingham. In season five, their songs ‘The Wizard’ and ‘War Pigs’ were used during the show’s famous slow-motion group walks.
Director Anthony Byrne explained the choice: “We built a music library with songs that we tested in different scenes. Black Sabbath seemed perfect”.
Cillian Murphy also noted the perfect fit, saying, “because [Black Sabbath] are a Brummie band, it seems logical that we would use them”. Using the hometown heroes gave these scenes a deeper local pride and an unstoppable, chaotic energy.
Female Voices Revealing New Depth
While the show revolves around a male-dominated world, some of its most powerful musical moments come from female artists. Anna Calvi created the score for season five, focusing on the dark state of Tommy’s mind. Murphy praised her work, noting she did “a really interesting thing with breath” in her compositions that felt arresting and brilliant.
PJ Harvey also left a major mark, not only with her cover of ‘Red Right Hand’ but with songs like ‘To Bring You My Love’ that added a layer of sensuality and pain. Laura Marling‘s folk ballad ‘What He Wrote’ provided a moment of quiet, touching reflection. These artists brought out softer and more complex sides of the characters that dialogue alone could not.
The Emotional Punch of Radiohead
One of Cillian Murphy’s personal favorite music moments involves the band Radiohead. At the end of season three, Tommy is left utterly alone and betrayed in his large mansion as police arrest his family. The scene plays out to ‘Life in a Glasshouse’.
Murphy described why it worked so well: “You have to find a piece of music that can carry the weight of that and add something to it. There’s a depth to the music of Radioheadโฆ and it just fits”. He has called Radiohead his favorite band in the world and expressed a desire for even deeper collaboration with them. The use of their complex, melancholic music gave this scene of defeat a profound and haunting quality.
Storytelling Through Covers and Folk Music
The show often used cover versions to add new meaning to familiar songs. A standout example is Laura Marling‘s cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.’ It played at the end of season four as Tommy stood to take public office, offering a rare note of hope.
Murphy explained how it happened: “We don’t have the resources to license original Bob Dylan materialโฆ so then Antony [Genn] asked Laura Marling would she come and do the Dylan track. And she did, and apparently did it just in one take โ nailed it”.
Folk music also played a key role in tense moments. Johnny Cash‘s version of the Irish ballad ‘Danny Boy’ played in season two as Tommy prepared for a killing. The song, often seen as a message from a parent to a son going to war, mirrored the scene’s somber mood.
Music as a Window into Trauma
The music supervisor for the show, Amelia Hartley, explained that the modern soundtrack is designed to be a window into Tommy Shelby’s mind. He is a character suffering from the trauma of World War I, and the “dark and moody” music reflects his internal conflict.
This idea extends to other characters, like Aunt Polly, whose own painful history is reflected in the music choices. The soundtrack does not just support the action. It explains the psychology of the people driving it. Hartley noted they look for music that is “slightly dark, that looks at the darker side of people’s characters”.
Building Tension Without a Single Word
Peaky Blinders frequently uses music to build suspense in scenes with little or no dialogue. A prime example is the use of ‘Bad Habits’ by The Last Shadow Puppets during a scene where Tommy plans a murder. The driving rhythm and intense tone of the song create all the anxiety and anticipation needed.
Similarly, songs like ‘Come On Over’ by Royal Blood and ‘Snake Oil’ by Foals power through slow-motion shots of the Shelbys walking, their swagger amplified by the heavy guitar riffs. These wordless sequences, driven entirely by music, have become a signature style of the show.
From Screen to Festival: The Soundtrack’s Cultural Impact
The music became so popular that it transcended the show itself. In 2019, a official Peaky Blinders music festival was launched in Birmingham. Fans dressed in period tweed and flat caps to see performances by artists featured on the soundtrack, with special guest Liam Gallagher.
The festival, complete with actors staging brawls, showed how the show’s audio and visual style had blended into a full cultural experience. It proved that the curated “Peaky” soundโdescribed by Murphy as music from artists who are “outsiders” who have “resisted the tyranny of the mainstream”โhad a powerful life of its own.
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The Final Season’s “Gothic” Tone
For the sixth and final season, the music continued to shape the story’s atmosphere. Cillian Murphy hinted that the season would be “very intense,” using the word “gothic” to describe its tone. He confirmed that composer Anna Calvi remained involved, ensuring the music would continue to explore the darkest corners of Tommy’s psyche.
This commitment to a cohesive musical vision, from the first episode to the last, is what made the Peaky Blinders soundtrack so special. It was never an afterthought. As Steven Knight, the show’s creator, put it: “The Peaky Blinders story and the music we use are twins, born at the same time”.
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