Gene Pitney, “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (1962)

By SoDak

Sometimes when I run my tongue along my teeth, I recall the chipped “baby teeth” that I had when I was young. These teeth were jagged and sharp from sparing with my neighbor Matt, when we were six years old. Neither of us were tough—then or now. For some reason, his father had two pairs of boxing gloves, which we found in the basement. We figured, what the hell, let’s box. We timed the rounds by playing forty-fives, which had two- to three-minute songs per side, on the record player. One of our favorites was “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valence,” sung by Gene Pitney. We stood on opposite sides of the room, waiting for the needle to drop and the song to start. When the strange violin part in the opening sounded, we stepped forward holding up our gloves. As the slow gallop started, the match commenced with playful jabs. Whenever the triumph chorus arrived—“many a man would face his gun and many a man would fall, the man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance, he was the bravest of them all”—we would throw a few punches. The chorus occurs twice, so we had a couple dynamic moments each time the song played. The occasional punch bloodied a nose and chipped a tooth, but there was never any malice. I think we mostly enjoyed listening to old records, as we would hum and sing along, as we “fought.” At the time, we did not know that the legendary Burt Bacharch and Hal David wrote the song; we did not know who Gene Pitney was. We just relished listening to the song. I still get excited every time that I hear this simple song and get to sing along to the chorus.