Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025 | Songs That Are Begging to Be Used in Modern-Day Westerns

I don't have much for you by way of a preamble today, because the title is really as self-explanatory as I can make it.  I can, however, tell you that I got the idea for this post randomly earlier this year, and it's a little odd that I did, to be quite honest with you, since I don't tend to have much interest in Westerns set in the present day.  (I like a lot of Westerns that were made in the present day, but they're all set in the "Old West".)  But, there it is:  one day I was listening to some country songs and started thinking about how well they would fit into the soundtrack of a contemporary Western, and I realized that that could make a fun LoWCW post.  So, here we are. 😉

Read on, then, for a list of songs that I would include in a modern-day Western film, along with a brief blurb about how I envision each song fitting into a given story.

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"Daddy's Mugshot" 

by Laci Kaye Booth

Paging Hailee Steinfeld, paging Hailee Steinfeld.  It'd be a kind of tired old story — angsty youngster sets out to settle her long-lost father's scores — but that song and that star could make it worthwhile, I bet.  (What would those scores be, you ask?  Would those scores be legitimate, you ask?  Darned if I know.)  Or maybe the angsty youngster would have to actually team up with her long-lost father, most reluctantly . . . Hmm.  Possibilities.

"3 Tequila Floor" 

by Josiah Siska

I'm envisioning some kind of heist taking place in a seedy bar, like the scene in that one Leverage episode when Parker is two-stepping through a casino situation lifting/planting wallets, IDs, etc. to facilitate the con.  

"He Set Her Off" 

by Emily Ann Roberts

This, naturally, would be for the classic montage of the female protagonist finally leaving that abusive and/or unfaithful partner and reclaiming her life (arson optional).  We love to see it.

"Alibi"

by Bradley Cooper

 

I know that this is already in a film, but it's not in a Western, and I think it'd pair beautifully with that genre.  How, I'm not exactly sure.  The only vague impressions I have are of some slightly-roguish-but-secretly-nice male protagonist (or team thereof) getting up to (mostly harmless) mischief of some kind.  Perhaps plotting.  Scheming, even.

"Weren't for the Wind" 

by Ella Langley

Perhaps the soundtrack to a midlife crisis of some kind.  Or to the end credits of a melodramatic wistful, low-stakes Western about lost love or something. 

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Are there any songs that you'd love to hear in a Western someday?