Soundtrack Songs: Home On The Range

Neil Young: Home on the Range

[purchase]

Soundtracks are a great source for cover fans - both because including a souped up familiarity is an excellent way of bringing comfort and the recognition of hip modernity to the film experience, and because it's often cheaper to solicit a new version of an old song than it is to license the original. And though I have an affinity for the pop trailertunes which so often pepper modern mass-market cinema, I also have a deep respect for those much rarer covers from before the west was worn, most especially this keening, yearning cover of a classic tune gone sparse, which frames the title of 1980 Hunter S. Thompson biopic Where The Buffalo Roam.

The cult status of this film is legend and well-deserved, though deeper underground than the previously considered Harold and Maude. And sure enough: where the Harold and Maude soundtrack was eventually released, here I find myself recommending used vinyl, and you can't have mine. But as with that previous themesong, the songs of Home On The Range are best served within the context of the film itself, because, really, how can you resist Bill Murray playing a loony, ironic, drugged-up Thompson two decades before Johnny Depp took on the role? And opposite a middle-aged Peter Boyle, to boot?

In addition to the cover and several atmospheric Neil Young originals, the soundtrack songs here are eclectic, ranging from popular Dylan, Hendrix, Creedence, and Temptations tunes to a hilarious take of Murray drunkenly warbling Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds which I used to include on mixtapes as a gag. I'd say more, but Aquarium Drunkard covered this one so well last summer; links there are dead, but head over for the film synopsis, the original theatrical trailer, and more praise.