Red River

"There's three times in a man's life when he has a right to yell at the moon: when he marries, when his children come, and... and when he finishes a job he had to be crazy to start."
said by Mr. Melville (Harry Carey) in the film Red River.

As there are with the friendships we have made, the things we have done, there are those films that pass right on through after one viewing (if we're lucky); while others stay inside for a lifetime. Red River, starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, is in the latter category for me. It has a soundtrack that to me is the gold standard of movie soundtracks. While I generally feel most western soundtracks are great, it's at the top of any list.

When I went looking for a video for Red River, I found this YouTube. Only rarely do I read the comments below but this time I was rewarded when I learned Amazon now has the full soundtrack available. I skipped over as fast as my keyboard would take me and ordered Dimitri Tiomkin composer, William T. Stromberg conductor and Moscow Symphony Orchestra for the full soundtrack of the 1948 film, Red River.

Acquiring this particular soundtrack is a big deal for me. I have a lot of them. Mostly whenever I choose to use music to paint or write by, it's a soundtrack. I like them for how their soaring melodies play certain emotional strings, and (the ones I choose) for how they have no words to get in the way of my own ideas.

For years I have enjoyed the shortened version of Red River's soundtrack for bringing to life feelings of grandeur, of someone taking on a job that they know they can't succeed at but they stick with it anyway, for feelings of strength, and now I have the whole soundtrack to provide that inspiration. If you have seen the film, you know its soundtrack is like another character.

Maybe this year I will learn to do music montages such as are on YouTube; so I can create my own. I bought the software but haven't taken the time to learn how to use it. For now, someone else's creativity will have to do.

Red River