"Then he did something amazing," Hopper added. Dylan told Hopper he had one other condition, an idea that would become the film’s theme: “He said I could use it as long as I didn’t play it over the end credits: ‘Man, it’s depressing enough as it is.’ He thought the track was pretentious, and he had a real problem with the end of my movie: ‘You can’t end it like that! Peter should go back and blow those guys away.’”ĭylan would only allow "It’s Alright Ma" to be used if McGuinn performed it.
Hopper told Sabotage Times that he “thought it would be so cool if the movie ended with Dylan’s ‘It’s Alright Ma.’ The problem was Dylan didn’t like Easy Rider or the song so much. Of course, they all gave us their permission. “When we got it all together and realized that was the soundtrack, we had to show it to all the different bands. “All of those songs had been hits in their own genres and had been released,” Fonda recalled in the Daily Camera. Hopper prevailed but the artists still had to give their permission for the songs to be used in the film. “They picked me up in a limo at Columbia, and drove me over, played the music, I told Steve Stills, ‘Look, you guys are really good musicians, but honestly, anybody who rides in a limo can’t comprehend my movie, so I’m gonna have to say no to this, and if you guys try to get in the studio again, I may have to cause you some bodily harm.'" “I sabotaged that,” the late Hopper recalled in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. When they returned to L.A., it was inevitable that Fonda’s choice of Crosby, Stills & Nash to score the film was doomed. They spent $1 million licensing music, which was about three times the budget for shooting the rest of the film.”Īs shooting progressed, relations between Fonda and Hopper deteriorated. They ended up licensing the music that Donn was using. “When the film was cut there was a discussion about who was going to score it. “Originally, he was just making it more interesting, but the music became inseparable from the pictures,” Laszlo Kovacs, the film’s cinematographer, told MovieMaker magazine. But during production, film editor Donn Cambern synched the footage with rock music from his record collection. Listen to Steppenwolf Perform 'Born to Be Wild'įonda, at first, wanted Crosby, Stills & Nash to write an original score for Easy Rider. The Byrds’ "Wasn’t Born to Follow" was also included, and their leader Roger McGuinn performed Bob Dylan’s "It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)" as well as the only song written for the movie, "The Ballad of Easy Rider." The Easy Rider soundtrack was a powerhouse collection of songs that included "The Pusher" by Steppenwolf, the acid rocker "If 6 Was 9" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Band’s enigmatic "The Weight," which was included in the movie but covered by the group Smith on the album due to contractual issues.Īudiences were introduced to quirky tunes like "If You Want to Be a Bird" by the Holy Modal Rounders and Fraternity of Man’s "Don’t Bogart Me." The Electric Prunes contributed "Kyrie Eleison," a psychedelic take on religious music. That film helped make Bill Haley and His Comets’ "Rock Around the Clock" a monster hit. And the previous year's The Graduate included a handful of Simon & Garfunkel songs to spotlight the protagonist's alienation.Įasy Rider instead used contemporary rock songs – many already hits – as its soundtrack, a technique pioneered in 1955’s Blackboard Jungle. Hollywood soundtracks until then were usually an instrumental background score or a collection of songs written specifically for a film. One of the groundbreaking aspects of Easy Rider is its music.
Along the way they meet hippies, rednecks and George Hanson (played by Jack Nicholson), a hard-drinking lawyer who joins them. With the money hidden in the gas tank of Wyatt’s bike, the pair travel from Los Angeles to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras, then head to Florida to retire. The film follows Wyatt, aka "Captain America," (played by Fonda) and his friend Billy (Hopper), who just made a major drug sale.