Bone: The Great Cow Race Original Game Soundtrack / Bone: The Great Cow Race Original Game Soundtrack / Bone: The Great Cow Race Original Game Soundtrack

Greetings fellow Bone-heads™, at long last I'm taking a moment to write up a few words about the music for Telltale's second installment of Jeff Smith's utterly nifty Bone saga. Believe it or not, I've been meaning to draft up these notes for the better part of the year, but what with the excitement of Sam and Max season 1, there never seemed to be any time.

At any rate, with the recent release of the Bone Director's Cuts, now seems like as good a moment as any to strap on my typing fingers and talk a little bit about the score for the second game.

The first thing that's worth mentioning is that I had even more fun writing for Cow Race than I did on Out from Boneville. This was partly because there were so many delicious opportunities to elaborate on the motifs I established in the first game. It was also great to finally score Phoney, Barrelhaven, and to really meet (and control) Smiley bone - all of which received musical treatment I'd been plotting since before we began production on the first game.

I know I've mentioned it before a few times, but my favorite aspect of scoring Bone is that lovely balance between the comic and the serious - the rustic, and the mysterious. The Great Cow Race allowed for quite a bit more of both, and I had fun widely swinging from the rustic spring fair, to cranky/cartoony Phoney, to Barrelhaven's earnest melody, to Smiley's jaunty theme. And the best of all was the chance to mix them all together in the music for the cow race itself.

Regarding Smiley's Theme: I know a number of critics have compared Jeff Smith's artwork to the work of Walt Disney, and it's a comparison that seems appropriate to me - especially in the case of Smiley Bone. If you've ever been to one of the Disney theme parks, you'll probably agree that of all the Bone characters, Smiley seems the most like he'd feel at home in Disneyland. Not only does he look the part, but he is so absurdly carefree, I wanted his theme to have that light, Main Street USA, Americana sound. That's why it's infused with all of that Dixieland/ragtime/western swing - not to mention all of the little musical quotes from the early American songbook canon.*

You may also notice that the music for Gran'ma Ben's cabin (though it may seem all-new at first listen) is a fairly conservative variation on the themes that were established in the first game. If you play the games back-to-back, you'll hear expanded versions of some of those lilting, melancholy ideas that were only hinted at in the first game's score. I certainly appreciated the opportunity to unobtrusively develop ideas this way.

In the end, I suppose my main point (if any) is that I had a ball with this project, and I certainly hope each of you have as much fun listening to it as I did writing it.

Now before I go on too long (as I do), I'd best go back to dedicating my every waking moment (and the occasional dozing moment) to the music and sound for episodes 3-6 of Sam and Max.

Happy listening,
Jared Emerson-Johnson