Halloween Hits – A Cowboy Legend

By Bennett Owen

Credit: Stefano Costantini

My gut feeling is that Ghost Riders in the Sky was inspired by a western cloudburst, one that echoes off the mountaintops and where the lightning rips great holes in the firmament.  The author, Stan Jones says the lyrics are based on a tale a cowboy told him when he was a young lad.

But since its first release in 1949 ‘A Cowboy Legend’ has ensconced itself firmly into America’s discography, a unique and evocative tale that has been retold by more than 50 artists.  Burl Ives did it first but the Sons of the Pioneers, Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins recorded their own classic versions.

Here’s an old recording by The Sons of the Pioneers with Stan Jones telling the story behind the song:

And here’s the Johnny Cash version:

Riders on the Storm - Halloween Hits

By Bennett Owen

Credit: yvonnedelavega

This classic by The Doors was inspired by Ghost Riders in the Sky and you can hear the similarities through all seven minutes, right down to the raindrops falling from Ray Manzarek’s synthesizer.  This is a ghostly tale chock full of disturbing imagery…”there’s a killer on the road…” every boy who came of age in the 70s knows the line that comes next…an allusion to a hitchhiker that murdered an entire family.

Urban legend has it that the song was conceived in part by Jim Morrison’s childhood memory of a car accident in New Mexico in which several Navajo Indians were killed…True or not, Oliver Stone highlighted that fable in his movie about Morrison.  Riders on the Storm was the last song recorded by The Doors and entered the top 100 on the day Morrison died, July 3^rd, 1971. Here it is in its entirety and the accompanying video is not for the faint of heart: