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:

Long Black Veil – Halloween Hits to R.I.P. By

By Bennett Owen

Credit: horseprariechatter

The storyteller in the Long Black Veil speaks to us from beyond the grave, seeking forgiveness for an act of betrayal which he expiated by giving up his life, hung for a murder he didn't commit, going to his grave to safe keep the terrible truth that could have proved his innocence. His only solace is the specter of a woman who visits his grave by night and the knowledge of their shared secret.

Vaguely unsettling too, is the thought that despite his selfless act, a cold-blooded killer remained free, possibly to strike again. Perhaps it was the very friend our falsely accused hero was trying to protect...

But frankly the scariest thing about this clip is that the beautiful Emmylou Harris appears to be ageless:

Halloween Hits to R.I.P. By – Dueling Banjos

By Bennett Owen

Credit: PlasticAxe.com

If you haven’t seen the movie, it may seem less like Halloween and more like a tribute to the roots of country music. But those of us who have watched ‘Deliverance’ know Dueling Banjos is an ominous and downright creepy portent of terrible trouble right around the next bend in the river.  It’s as if that banjo-picking kid already knows what’s in store for these too smart city slickers. And he ain’t talking. 

As a young lad I snuck into a matinee showing of Deliverance in Gladstone, Oregon and spent the next six months sleeping with the lights on. It’s not so much the misadventure that befalls the four buddies. It’s the nightmare that only truly begins when they return to civilization…a nightmare that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.

Ode to Billie Joe -- Halloween Hits to R.I.P. By

By Bennett Owen

Credit: Library of Congress

A few days ago I was musing about the maddening mind game of interpreting lyrics that just don't quite tell the whole story. Ode to Billie Joe is the absolute template for songs that leave out that critical piece of the puzzle. Paul McCartney may not be dead but Billie Joe sure as hell is. The question to this day remains, what happened?

Beautiful Bobbie Gentry has never revealed what the girl in the song “threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge,” though she hints it may have been an engagement ring...a careless act that led Billie Joe to commit suicide the next day, throwing himself off the same bridge. Gentry points out the real crux of the song is the girl's indifference...at once intoxicating and toxic ... and a prime ingredient for a gothic horror tale.