The following list represents one fan's rankings of the five best
Western songs. I'm excluding pop songs that appeared in Westerns (
Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head as well as Western musicals (
Annie Oakley, Gene Autry). I'm sure there will be some dissenting opinions, especially since perhaps the most famous of Western songs comes in at No. 4. But hey, a little lively disagreement is a good thing on a classic movie blog!
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| The iconic closing shot. |
1.
The Hanging Tree (Max David & Jerry Livington) - Easily my favorite of the Western "story songs" (it also summarizes the film's theme). After I saw the Gary Cooper movie, the song stuck in my head to the point that I had to special-order the Marty Robbins recording on a vinyl 45 (yes, that was before MP3 downloads). The song was a minor hit for Robbins on the charts, but it has aged beautifully.
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| Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. |
2.
3:10 to Yuma (George Duning and Ned Washington) - I'll differ from the majority who site
Gunfight at the OK Corral as the best of the Frankie Laine-sung Western themes.
Yuma is a moody, almost sad piece...a stark contrast to the usual uptempo Western song.
3.
Gunfight at the OK Corral (Dimitri Tiomkin & Ned Washington) - I can just hear Frankie Laine crooning: "O-K...Cor-ral...O-K...Cor-ral..." As much as I love the music, I feel compelled to shed the spotlight on Ned Washington, who penned the lyrics for several great Western tunes. The following deceptively simple lyric is a fine example of his talent:
Boot hill, Boot hill
So cold, so still
There they lay side by side
The killers that died
In the gunfight at OK Corral
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| Cooper readies for the showdown. |
4.
The Ballad of High Noon (aka
Do Not Foresake Me, Oh My Darlin') - Probably the most influential song on this list, it won an Oscar and turned into a big hit for the already-popular Tex Ritter. In fact, Ritter sang it on the first Academy Awards telecast in 1953. It ranked No. 25 on
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs.
5.
Friendly Persuasion (Dimitri Tiomkin & Paul Francis Webster) - An untraditional song for an untraditional Western (some may argue it's not a Western, but the Civil War subplot is central to the story). Pat Boone recorded the song in 1956 for one of his biggest hits.
Honorable mentions:
How the West Was Won,
Blazing Saddles, and
True Grit.
