Rawhide (song)

Rawhide is a Western song written by Ned Washington (lyrics) and composed by Dimitri Tiomkin in 1958. It was originally recorded by Frankie Laine. The song was used as the theme to "Rawhide", the western television series that ran on CBS from 1959 to 1966.

The song talks about a rancher taking his cattle on a cattle drive.

Performers

*Frankie Laine (performed again with Jimmy Carroll and his orchestra)
*Riders in the Sky
*Dead Kennedys
*The Blues Brothers
*101 Strings Orchestra
*Greenbriar Boys
*Sublime
*Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell (new dimensions in bluegrass)
*Deathline International
*The Chaps (Scottish dialect parody, 1982)
*The Jackson 5
*The Meteors
*The Men They Couldn't Hang
*Dezperadoz ("The legend and the truth" album, 2006)
*Litfiba ("Pirata" album, 1989)

Pop culture references

*The song is sung by Link Wray
*The Blues Brothers version of the song is played briefly while Fievel rides on a tumbleweed in "".
*A parody of this song was once used in a Wal-Mart ad campaign, the song was titled "Rollback" (referring to how Wal-Mart cuts their prices)
*The Chaps' Scottish dialect parody was included on a 1982 Ronco compilation album, "Raiders of the Pop Charts", which placed #1 on the UK Albums Chart for two weeks beginning the week of January 15, 1983. The Chaps' parody was featured on the Dr. Demento show on February 6, 1983.
*The "Histeria!" episode "North America" ends with a Kid Chorus song titled "The Cowpie Song", sung to the tune of "Rawhide".
*In the original version of "Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" episode Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid, a cover of the song can be heard in the background when Mario, Luigi and Toad escape a boulder.
*The song can be heard at Wild West Falls in Warner Bros. Movie World.
*In the video-game Crash Tag Team Racing, Cortex sometimes sings a portion of the song when starting his car after a complete stop.
*The song was used on a special American Independence Day themed episode of the UK version of "Deal or No Deal", replacing the usual music used during the player selection.
*Rapper Ol Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan created his own rendition of the song on his solo debut ("").
*In Dreamworks "Shrek 2", Donkey is heard singing his own variation of the song.
*In the Star Trek novel, How Much for Just the Planet?, one of the songs is a parody of "Rawhide."
*Sublime attempted to include a cover of this song on their album "40 oz. to Freedom", but could not due to difficulty clearing the rights to the song.
* In Lisa the Iconoclast, a Season 7 episode of the Simpsons, a song about town founder Jebediah Springfield, based around the melody of the Rawhide theme, plays over the end credits, with whip cracking towards the end.
* In Volvo 700 Series promotional video (cover version).
* The Star Wars parody band The Death Star Repairmen spoofed the song to create "Red 5"

ee also

*Rawhide (TV series)