"I’ve been wanting to record these tunes for a long time. They’ve been in my mind for years and I didn’t even dare to think that one day I’d be able to record them. The memories connected with this music have stayed with me. Like on a film, the images of the people I grew up with and of my parents changed in front of my eyes. I inherited this music from them. Each of these tunes has got its own story. I recorded them for my own pleasure, but then I thought why not let other people have them? Why not give them some pleasure as well? A lot of these people have now grown old and, like me, have dreamed of hearing this music recorded and preserved for future generations." Ivo Papasov
The Falcon and the Snowman is an album of original music for the soundtrack of the Orion Pictures film of the same title, composed and co-produced by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays. The music is performed by the Pat Metheny Group with occasional orchestrations for strings. The exceptions are a male chorus featuring a young alto which bookends the album and "This Is Not America," a collaboration with David Bowie, credited as producer and co-composer, who performs lyrics for an arrangement of the theme heard in the track "Chris."