Ukulele Orchestra Performs Ennio Morricone’s Iconic Western Theme Song, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” And It’s Pretty Brilliant.

in Film, Music | September 21st, 2016 5 Comments

Last week, Josh Jones high­light­ed for you a free five-hour playlist fea­tur­ing Ennio Morricone’s Scores for Clas­sic West­ern Films. Even if you’re not deeply famil­iar with Morricone’s body of work, you’ve almost cer­tain­ly heard the theme to The Good, the Bad & the Ugly–the icon­ic 1966 Spaghet­ti west­ern direct­ed by Ser­gio Leone. Open­ing with the imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­niz­able two-note melody that sounds like “the howl of a coy­ote,” the theme was orig­i­nal­ly record­ed with the help of the Unione Musicisti di Roma orches­tra.

Above, you can watch anoth­er orches­tra, The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain, pay homage to Morricone’s clas­sic theme. Described by The Guardian as “a cultish British insti­tu­tion” known for its expert­ly played cov­ers of Kate Bush’s “Wuther­ing Heights” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” the Ukulele Orches­tra group scored its biggest hit with this per­for­mance. It’s an out­take from the DVD Anar­chy in the Ukulele, which you can pur­chase through The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain’s web­site. Enjoy.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear 5 Hours of Ennio Morricone’s Scores for Clas­sic West­ern Films: From Ser­gio Leone’s Spaghet­ti West­erns to Tarantino’sThe Hate­ful Eight

George Har­ri­son Explains Why Every­one Should Play the Ukulele, With Words and Music

Jake Shimabukuro Plays “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” on the Uke


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