That was definitely going in a different direction than the Elmer Bernstein style.Ever feel like every book you pick up is just recycling the same old characters and plot devices? Whether it’s the never ending repeat of Mr. He did all kinds of cool stuff, he used a bass harmonica a lot. On The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he brought in the ocarina and a solo singer to sing that famous melody. With those movies, Ennio really redefined the genre and brought in his own elements, and they were wildly creative and disparate, and they certainly included twangy guitars and they often had choirs. JM: We didn't go down the stylistic road of the spaghetti western, we intentionally steered clear of that kind of thing. He was prepared, he came in and he sang the crap out of it.ĪllMusic: One of the most popular western soundtracks is Ennio Morricone's score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which seems like it would have been easy to parody, but you left it alone. He did it eight or 10 times, and that was that, we had what we needed. We sent him the demo, Seth sang a scratch track for Alan, and when he came in and it was obvious he'd listened to it. This is a real professional who knows his stuff. We did it in Nashville at Keith 's studio that Alan has made all his hits in over all the years, and he did a great job. Clearly, Alan Jackson knew what was going on. Those guys get stereotyped and have to play some pretty silly stuff.ĪllMusic: There's a famous story that Frankie Laine didn't know that Blazing Saddles was a comedy when he sang the theme song. The other one is the tuba: Tubby the Tuba. JM: Poor bassoon players, it's also one of the most gorgeous of the woodwind instruments, especially when it's used as a solo instrument, in its high register. Those are some of the main conventions that say "comedy." Also, you notice marimba in TV shows a lot, it's a trend that whenever you're getting in any way vaguely satirical or comical, they always pull in marimba.ĪllMusic: I guess the bassoon is a pretty funny instrument. JM: Orchestrationally, it's pizzicato strings, xylophone, bassoon sounding very comical. I think it's funnier just playing it straight.ĪllMusic: What are some of the musical tropes that traditionally indicate comedy? I think it would have cheapened the idea of the earnest part of it, and flip-flopping like that would have been enormously difficult. I'm actually very glad that I didn't have to do that, going between being very straight-ahead and earnest, and then the comedy. JM: In film scoring there's lots of conventions that constitute comedy, and none of them would have been good in this. It's a throwback, for sure.ĪllMusic: What sort of things did you avoid to keep it from getting silly? We discussed lots of different westerns that he liked, and I must have watched eight or 10, just to get a feel for the genre, and it's definitely a genre score. He wanted a score with certain themes in it, so I wrote those themes first, and we tweaked those until we got them the way he wanted them, and then I went to write the individual pieces of music that we call cues. Joel McNeely: Seth MacFarlane is a soundtrack buff, and he knew exactly what kind of score he wanted: a broad, sweeping, thematic, orchestral score. ![]() ![]() We talked with McNeely about MacFarlane's input on the music, what instruments are over-used to convey comedic beats, and what a pro Alan Jackson is.ĪllMusic: You could have gone silly with this soundtrack, but you play it pretty straight. ![]() Plus, Alan Jackson drops in to sing on the opening theme. But despite the film's heavily comedic nature, MacFarlane tasked McNeely with creating a straightforward, 100 percent serious score for the film, with the slogan "let the music ignore the comedy." So it's not " Yakety Sax" with twangy guitars, but instead a sincere take on the classic western score. ![]() It was composed by Joel McNeely, who has worked with MacFarlane on other musical projects, as well as the soundtracks to The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and action classics like Supercop, Terminal Velocity and Air Force One. Seth MacFarlane's western farce A Million Ways to Die in the West is out next week, and we have an exclusive stream of the album's soundtrack.
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