The Ballad of Arch Stanton

This one’s been percolating for a while, but the recent death of movie music maestro Ennio Morricone spurred me to finally finish it. The music has bits of three of Morricone’s pieces from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: the title theme; “The Ecstasy of Gold,” which plays as Tuco searches for the grave; and “The Trio,” which plays as the three gunslingers have their final showdown at the center of the cemetery.

This song is me wondering how that showdown might look from a slightly different perspective…

Words and music by Joseph Abbott

My name was Arch Stanton, New Mexican born
A prospector’s life did I lead
To find a rich vein was the task I had sworn
All else forgotten in greed

I loved no one, helped no one, kept to my own
My soul’s hole with whiskey I’d fill
My illness made short work, I died all alone
And they buried me up on Sad Hill

CHORUS Now it’s oh, so long I’ve wandered
Over this land so cold
For all of the life I squandered
In the never-ending lust for gold

Quiet I slept in that grave for a year
Heedless of war and of crime
But what had been secretly buried so near
Would shatter my rest for all time

For an ugly man dug up the dirt from my box
A good man kicked open the lid
Then they and the bad man commenced heated talks
Of gold, and where it was hid.  CHORUS

Now the bad man has joined in our audience of dead
The good man, he rode off the stage
A bullet-pierced noose adorned Tuco’s head
With my bones to witness his rage

And now I haunt those who hear only gold’s call
Take heed of this warning I give:
You need to keep greed from becoming your all
If you would seek truly to live.  CHORUS x2