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A Western on Easter Island

Carter Burwell's score for Wild Horse Nine brings a Hollywood Western sound to Easter Island, a feeling echoed when Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" is performed by actors John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell.

Tracklist

  1. Our First Big Heads - Sunset Surveillance — Carter Burwell
  2. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry — Hank Williams
  3. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry — John Malkovich & Sam Rockwell

Transcript

Our First Big Heads - Sunset Surveillance — Carter Burwell

Carter Burwell hadn’t planned a Western sound for Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh’s film about two CIA agents who travel to Easter Island. Burwell says he tried ideas on a charango, a ten-string lute, and found a melody for the two men that reminded him of a Hollywood Western. The island’s mystery still felt missing to him, so he added Indonesian gamelan gongs at the bottom of their range. After the shoot, he played director McDonagh the resulting Western-like theme on Andean instruments with deep gongs. McDonagh agreed the unplanned approach worked. Hear Our First Big Heads - Sunset Surveillance by Carter Burwell.

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry — Hank Williams

Burwell’s score isn’t the only music in Wild Horse Nine. Composer Carter Burwell and writer-director Martin McDonagh curated a physical soundtrack mixing his score with songs. It opens with Harry Belafonte’s “Island in the Sun,” followed by the Burwell cue we just heard, then Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” This Williams recording is on a greatest-hits album. The physical soundtrack credits him with the song, then returns to it later with two other performers. Hear I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry by Hank Williams.

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry — John Malkovich & Sam Rockwell

The actors in Wild Horse Nine, John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, are credited together on “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” on the film’s digital soundtrack. It’s track 16, listed at 42 seconds. The physical soundtrack includes their performance too, after Hank Williams’s recording of the same song. Hear I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry by John Malkovich & Sam Rockwell.

Burwell says his theme for the two men was Western-like, played on Andean instruments with deep gamelan gongs. How do the two recordings sit beside that idea?

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