Easy Rider (soundtrack)

Easy Rider
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released	August 1969
Genres	Soundtrack rock
Length	37:38
Labels	ABC-Dunhill Reprise
Producer	Various artists
Singles from Easy Rider
"Ballad of Easy Rider" Released: August 1969

Easy Rider is the soundtrack to the cult classic 1969 film Easy Rider. The songs that make up the soundtrack were carefully selected to form a "musical commentary" within the film. The album of the soundtrack was released by ABC-Dunhill Records in August 1969 (catalog no. DSX 50063). It peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 chart in September of that year, and was certified gold in January 1970.

Description

The songs on the soundtrack album are sequenced in the same order as they appear in the film, with the following differences:

• "The Weight", as originally recorded by The Band for their 1968 debut album Music From Big Pink, was used in the film but could not be licensed for the soundtrack. To deal with this, ABC-Dunhill commissioned Smith, who recorded for the label at the time, to record a cover version of the song for the soundtrack album.
• The Electric Flag's "Flash, Bam, Pow" appears only partially in the movie, omitting the unnerving begin and end, using only the rhythmic middle part. Originally recorded by the Electric Flag for Roger Corman's 1967 film The Trip, with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper plus Jack Nicholson as screenwriter, it was acknowledged in the Easy Rider closing credits but was omitted from the soundtrack album.
• Little Eva's "Let's Turkey Trot" is playing on the jukebox when the protagonists enter the café, thus this 1963 song was ambient sound and not a chosen song like the other, contemporary ones; it was acknowledged in the film's closing credits but omitted from the soundtrack album.

Distribution of the album transferred from the ABC-Dunhill label to Warner Bros. Records' Reprise Records subsidiary (catalog no. MS 2026) in late 1969. Easy Rider subsequently went out of print, but was reissued in June 2000 by the Universal Music Group's MCA Records label, which had acquired the ABC and Dunhill labels in 1979.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link
Pitchfork	8.6/10

Track listing

Most of the tracks on the Easy Rider soundtrack were previously released on other albums by their respective artists.

On LP, cassette and reel-to-reel releases of Easy Rider, tracks 1–5 appeared as side 1, and tracks 6–10 as side 2.

1. "The Pusher" (Hoyt Axton) – 5:49
   • Steppenwolf – Steppenwolf (1968)
2. "Born to Be Wild" (Mars Bonfire) – 3:37
   • Steppenwolf – Steppenwolf (1968)
3. "The Weight" (Jaime Robbie Robertson) – 4:29
   • Smith (1969)
4. "Wasn't Born to Follow" (Carole King/Gerry Goffin) – 2:03
   • The Byrds – The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968)
5. "If You Want to Be a Bird (Bird Song)" (Antonia Duren) – 2:35
   • The Holy Modal Rounders – The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders (1969)
6. "Don't Bogart Me" (Elliot Ingber/Larry Wagner) – 3:05
   • Fraternity of Man – Fraternity of Man (1968)
7. "If 6 Was 9" (Jimi Hendrix) – 5:35
   • The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold as Love (1967)
8. "Kyrie Eleison/Mardi Gras (When the Saints)" (Traditional, arranged by David Axelrod) – 4:00
   • The Electric Prunes – Mass in F Minor (1968)
9. "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" (Bob Dylan) – 3:39
   • Roger McGuinn (1969)
10. "Ballad of Easy Rider" (Roger McGuinn/Bob Dylan) – 2:14
    • Roger McGuinn (1969)

2004 deluxe edition

Charts

References

Further reading

Music and Sound in the Films of Dennis Hopper By Stephen Lee Naish https://www.routledge.com/Music-and-Sound-in-the-Films-of-Dennis-Hopper/Naish/p/book/9781032737683

• Billboard staff (September 6, 1969), "Album reviews: Easy Rider", Billboard, vol. 81, no. 36