The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away!)

Last updated
"The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away!)"
Song by Doris Day
from the album Calamity Jane
Released1953 (1953)
Genre Popular
Composer(s) Sammy Fain
Lyricist(s) Paul Francis Webster

"The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away!)" is a song in the 1953 film Calamity Jane , written by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, and performed by Doris Day. [1] It was also used in the London stage show Calamity Jane in 2003 [2] and the musical based on Doris Day's greatest hits, A Sentimental Journey. [3]

The song's opening lines are:

Oh! The Deadwood Stage is a-rollin' on over the plains,
with the curtains flappin' and the driver slappin' the reins.
Beautiful sky! A wonderful day!
Whip crack-away!, Whip crack-away!, Whip crack-away!

It goes on to contain a macabre line about Wild Bill Hickok, "on his gun there's more than twenty-seven notches". [4]

In 1957, Clint Walker sings the song in the Cheyenne episode "The Conspirators".

In 2010, Australian singer Melinda Schneider recorded the song for her Doris Day tribute album Melinda Does Doris.

References

  1. ↑ Tom Santopietro (2008), Considering Doris Day, p. 77
  2. ↑ Lizzie Loveridge, Calamity Jane, Curtain Up
  3. ↑ Alvin Rakoff gets sentimental over Doris Day, The Daily Telegraph, 13 Feb 2009
  4. ↑ Alan Clayson (1997), Death discs: an account of fatality in the popular song, p. 42


Musical notes.svg

This 1950s song-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.