Stewart Copeland’s "Horse Opera" (1993) [mp3-320]

01 – The Cowboys Of Nottingham (Part 1)
02 – It’s Too Late
03 – Infringing Bylaws
04 – We Were Doing No Harm
05 – A Man Without A Gun
06 – It’s The Only Way
07 – The Cowboys Of Nottingham (Part 2)
08 – Jesse James And Billy The Kid
09 – Let George Do What He’s Gotta Do
10 – Take A Look At Me, You People
11 – Tax Liability
12 – Time To Hand In All Your Guns
13 – Strange Things Happen (Part 1)
14 – Strange Things Happen (Part 2)
15 – Las Vegas
16 – Slaughter
17 – Jerusalem
18 – Cup Of Tea, Dear

http://rapidshare.com/files/2645874600/SCHO.zip

I don’t think that this has been posted before – but apologies if this turns out to be a duplicate. I recorded this onto video in 1993 and then transferred it over to my PC – so it might not be the best possible audio quality. The track names are totally unofficial.

I don’t believe this soundtrack has ever been officially released (please do correct me if that is wrong) and so I hope this is of interest to Stewart Copeland fans.

In 1992 Stewart Copeland wrote an opera, Horse Opera, which was commissioned by Britain’s Channel 4 as part of the TV network’s new opera series. Horse Opera, based on the original play "Cowboys" by Anne Caufield with a libretto written by Jonathan Moore, a popular British comedian, was filmed on location in Arizona for broadcast in England in late 1993.

From an interview with Stewart Copeland by Robert Hanks in The Independent newspaper in October 1993:

"Horse Opera, for which he composed the music, is due for transmission on Channel 4 early next year in a season of operas written for television. It’s the story of George, a boring, bigoted clerk from Nottingham who spends his spare time running the local cowboy society and trying to write the Great Western Novel. During an argument with his Asian next-door neighbours he gets hit over the head with a cooking pan, and the rest of the opera is about what happens to him in his delirium. He finds himself in the Wild West, where a man without a gun ain’t a man. Illusions are quickly shattered: Wyatt Earp – played by Rik Mayall – turns out to be a wimp with a taste for cosmetics; Copeland himself puts in an appearance as a murderous Jesse James. And while George temporarily becomes a hero, saving some simple townsfolk from a land-grabbing railroad baron, he finds himself drawn into a finale of Peckinpahesque violence, all slow motion and anatomically correct gunshot wounds. There is some messy plotting and some rather broad slapstick humour, but Copeland’s twanging score keeps rattling along for the full 60 minutes.

……

He has strong views on the stratification of British society – so rigid that people shouldn’t even try to break out of it: ‘They’ll only develop anxiety and low self-esteem.’

Some of his ideas shaped Horse Opera, turning it into an American take on England. That wasn’t how it worked originally. To begin with it was a play by Anne Caulfield, called Cowboys. Bob Baldwin, the director of Horse Opera, brought the play to Copeland when the idea of a television opera was first raised. ‘I didn’t really like the text that much, not because it was badly written or anything, but just because I didn’t go for its basic premise, which is that the United States is 100 per cent evil and that 250 million people should pack their bags and re-emigrate back to Europe and give the land back to the Indians.’ So, goodbye Anne Caulfield, hello rising young director / librettist Jonathan Moore.

As this tale suggests, Horse Opera is Copeland’s show. In some of his other scores, working with what he calls ‘symphonic music’, he needed help with the orchestration. Here, he did everything but the singing by himself, in the studio. ‘The style of the music is my own vernacular, it’s my first language, so to speak – guitar, bass, drums.’ There’s also a banjo – actually a synthesiser, but convincing enough for Andy Summers to congratulate him on his playing when he heard the tape."

Music: Those days are over: After the Police, Stewart Copeland set himself up as a composer. Robert Hanks hears the one about the drummer who writes operas – Arts & Entertainment – The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music-those-days-are-over-after-the-police-stewart-copeland-set-himself-up-as-a-composer-robert-hanks-hears-the-one-about-the-drummer-who-writes-operas-1509126.html)