Every Which Way But Loose
My attempt at doing a weekly, or at least semi-weekly Mp3 post continues today with a few selections from the Every Which Way But Loose soundtrack. I have been talking about getting the poster art for Every Which Way But Loose on me forever. It features Clint Eastwood looking like a total bad ass while being hugged by an orangutan. We don’t even have to talk about how awesome that is. I mean, it is life changing and you know how much I love dumb tattoos of old conservative white guys who have starred in movies with apes. But even though I have wanted the tattoo for several years I didn’t actually watch the movie until a few months ago.
I loved it even more than I thought I would. Clint Eastwood plays a street fighter who goes from town to town fighting for money and trying to rescue a girl who doesn’t want to be rescued. Totally unrelated to the plot is his pet orangutan Clyde who spends the movie getting drunk and looking cute. The movie would be barely changed at all if you removed the ape, but the movie poster would probably only have been 1/10th as awesome.
One thing about watching Every Which Way But Loose is that you will finish it with Eddie Rabbit’s title track stuck in your head. For me it was probably a week before I stopped singing it aloud to strangers on the subway. I knew I needed the album so I went on eBay and picked it up on vinyl and after some desperate searching found a download of it online. The soundtrack is pretty amazing. I am not even really a country music guy, but there are a bunch of really amazing songs on it. There are also a bunch of random instrumental songs that I don’t really care for, but luckily we live in a world where you can just delete those from your iTunes library.
For your listening pleasure today I am going to pull three of my favorite tracks. The first is the previously mentioned title track, Eddie Rabbit’s “Every Which Way But Loose”. It is super slow and twanggy but somehow it is the most catchy damn song on earth. It will probably be in my head from now till Christmas.
Eddie Rabbit – Every Which Way But Loose
My second choice is “A “Six Pack To Go” by Hank Thompson. I have loved this song ever since my friends punk band in covered it nearly a decade ago. It’s a rocking country tune about getting wasted instead of paying rent. How can you not love that?
Hank Thompson – A Six Pack to Go
My third choice was a bit harder to make. I wanted to go with a Charlie Rich song because he is actually in the movie playing live at one of the country-western bars in the film. I also considered Mel Tillis song “Coca Cola Cowboy” because it is fucking awesome but I figured I should figure a lady since Sondra Locke is one of the stars of the film and has two songs on the soundtrack, but her character is sort of a bitch, so fuck her. I went with the Carol Chase song “I Can’t Say No To A Truck Driving Man”. It is a fantastic little ditty and super catchy.
Carol Chase – Can’t Say No to a Truck Drivin’ Man
Anyway, this write up is not super coherent so I am going to go, but you should probably watch the movie as soon as you can and do what you can to track down the damn soundtrack. Have a good day.
