Jessie Ware’s new song Ride has strong cowboy themes, in the video she sorts a fringed hat and sings about how she likes the way someone moves across the dancefloor. In the background she sings “Giddy-up”.
The track is built around a sample of the Ennio Morricone theme to the film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
The tracks is lifted from her Superbloom album out April 10th, but it got us thinking about othert artists who’ve created cowboy themed tunes.
From Madonna, to Kylie Minogue, long forgotten dance hits, and disco classic – there’s a rich tradition of the cowboy song.
Cowboy Style was the fourth and final single taken from Kylie Minogue’s 1997 album Impossible Princess. Released a year after the album dropped, the video featured a sound check recording during the tour which saw Minogue performing the song in a pink glitter cowboy hat next to shirtless hunky backing dancers wearing chaps and bandanas.
Kylie would return with Golden, a whole album of countified hits in 2018 generating further hits with Dancing, Stop Me From Falling, and A Lifetime to Repair.
Madonna tapped into the country aesthetic with the track Don’t Tell Me from her Music album in 2000. The song was the second single lifted from the album and written with her brother in law Joe Henry, a bona fide alt country music star.
The song was built around a tune Henry had written called Stop, it would appear on his Scar album which was released the following year.
Australian outfit Rhapsody was a no-hit wonder with their song Cowboy Lover. The duo comprised Kymberlie Harrison and Cathy Ford, and were from the same record company that found success with Melissa Tkautz.
Sadly they couldn’t repeat the success. The duo posed for Playboy magazine in August 1993 but even that didn’t help their song rise in the charts. It only got to number 95.
A minor disco hit was Saddle Up by David Christie. It came out on the very tail end of disco in 1982 and is incredibly catchy. Under the pseudonym name James Bolden, the singer wrote many well known hits recorded by Tina Charles, Grace Jones and Gloria Gaynor.
While the Village People urged us to Go West, the gayest cowboys were Skatt Bros, whose song Life at the Outpost came with a homoerotic video. The video was created by the band’s Australian record company and didn’t actually feature any members of the band, and the song was only a hit down under.
Paula Cole scored one of her biggest hits when she asked Where Have All The Cowboys Gone? Sting donned a cowboy hat for his pop-reggae composition This Cowboy Song.
Haysi Fantayzee are remembered for their big 1982 hit Shiny Shiny, but their follow up John Wayne is Big Leggy is a definite bop with a country twist.
In 1985 British band Boys Don’t Cry scored their only hit with I Wanna Be a Cowboy. It was a Top 10 hit here in Australia, and topped the charts in New Zealand, but only made it to number 77 in their home country.
In recent years there’s been a definite pop and country cross over with Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Nil Nas X and Orville Peck all having a foot firmly in each camp. Lady Gaga even turned to country for her Joanne album, but its not been a fan favourite.
What’s your favourite cowboy pop song?
The LGBTIQA+ community will have a chance to don their cowboy boots and bandanas when Barn Dance kicks off in Albany on Saturday night. Don’t worry if you have forgotten every move to Cotton Eyed Joe, the fabulous team from OUTdance Perth will be on hand to show us how it’s done with a range of easy to learn line and partner dances.
Festival Queen BarbieQ and her gals Alexas Armstrong and Veronica Jean Jones will be there to entertain, while DJ Her Highness will keep the hot tunes coming all night long.
