JOHN BARRY – MIDNIGHT COWBOY (UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS)

JOHN BARRY – MIDNIGHT COWBOY (UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS)

Without question this one of the most beautiful pieces of film music ever composed.  It is also one of the most recognisable as captured in its creation are the stark and startling elements of two different worlds naively clashing and composing.  There is a real rough romance attached to this despatch as through harsh realities a glorious tone prevails.

This isn’t so much a song you listen to, it is one you sail on.  It is regal and deep.  As the strains enter your ears and inhabit the brain you find yourself transported to various prior places and states of mind.  This is one of those songs that will move a person towards memories.  Without words to get in the way and complicate things, the song serves as a pulse guiding the being to beautiful places and their own variation of Sarasota.  This is brain candy.

Midnight Cowboy is strange movie.  It is unique in how it is grubby and dark but still is able to find beauty in the slums of New York.  It is about having a dream and the foul reality of not realising it.  There is adventure is delusion.

On the flipside of the seven inch is “Fun City” which is another drifting composition from Barry that evokes the city with a piano and bass combination gliding across the ruins of the main track.  As strings cascade and an eventual horn enters proceedings it reminds of moments spent with Travis Bickle in a time not far removed from Ratso Rizzo.  Nothing is without complication.

As with the movie, time stands still.

Thesaurus moment: longing.

John Barry

Midnight Cowboy

United Artists Records