The Train (Jill's Theme)
A lyric response to Ennio Morricone's melody...
If we are to embrace cinema as an art, well, that means
that we must wrestle with westerns...
My own view is that a critique of western movies starts
with the western as a 'version of pastoral...' But that is by the by...
My generation watched SO many westerns, as we grew up. I have seen so many westerns and I have seen
some westerns so many times that often I can recognise the horses.
Of course we were intrigued as we watched the Italian
film maker Sergio Leone wrestle with the western. We can leave, for elsewhere, comment on the
'spaghetti western', the critics' readiness to sneer and the simple cineaste's
willingness to marvel.
We immediately knew, in 1968, that Sergio Leone's Once
Upon A time in the West was an outsider's meditation on the western. We spotted the citations.
And we still remember that moment when that crane shot
introduced Jill's Theme.
And we realised that we were also exploring the power of
melody...
So, some 50 years of meditation later, I have put my
lyric for Ennio Morricone's melody on my Soundcloud, and I have put a version
of my vision on Youtube...
Youtube
Soundcloud
Before I start work on a lyric for a pre-existing melody
I need to do a lot of thinking - thinking and, let us call it, research.
I need to be convinced that I can bring something to
this, that there is something for me to do and say.
Even if the work is a song translation - like my version of
Papa Joachim Paris - I still need to be convinced that the new entity in the
English language is good, that we have brought something worthwhile into the
world.
So... Let us call it research...
1.
I remember asking Heather Farrell-Roberts, our autoharp
star, some time ago, if Morricone, Jill's Theme, might be autoharp friendly.
The chords are simple, but the range is great.
There is some musicology, giving the chords, I-IV-V-I
here...
Ennio Morricone’s Score for Once Upon a Time in the West
(Part 1 of 3): Jill’s Theme (Main Theme) by Mark Richards
In the movie Jill's Theme is one of the leitmotifs. Unusually for film music, Morricone's music
for THIS movie was written before the film was made...
So, the melody is used in the movie in a rather scrappy
way - the leitmotif floats in and out.
When we were working on my lyric for the melody Stephanie
Hladowski and I had to find a song structure.
2.
It has become a bravura piece for sopranos in posh
frocks...
Patricia Janeckova - Once Upon A Time In The West (Miss
Reneta 2012)
Don't you feel sorry for all the other pretty ladies in
posh frocks - who have to stand around looking interested?
Steffi Vertriest
This version is really worth looking at - simple
piano and voice. The structure is
odd. But there is a structure.
(The Chords are in Chordify...)
Susanna Rigacci - Once Upon a Time in The West Ennio
Morricone 2002 Arena Concert 1
André Vásáry - male
etc....
3.
The melody is so attractive - there have been attempts to
write words to the melody...
Two examples on same Youtube video
Mireille Mathieu and Dulce Pontes ...
Once Upon A Time In The West
Mireille Mathieu Starts at 1.44
Dulce Pontes starts at 6.05
Text Mireille Mathieu at
In French
Text Dulce Pontes at
Andrea Bocelli Your Love (Once Upon a Time in The West)
Standard love songs that do not engage
with the narrative of the movie, and the melody as it appears in the movie.
But they do show how a text might be structured.
4.
My words engage with the film's narrative. It is a response to what we hear, and what we
see on screen.
It is very existentialist.
Of course.
I did ask Danny Yates for some electric guitar at the
beginning of our recording, to reference that distinctive Morricone guitar
sound from A Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More...
I have emailed
Ennio Morricone's office saying: 'It
might interest the Maestro that the emotion I hear when I listen to the
melody is, above all else, compassion...'
Patrick O'Sullivan
November 2018
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