A further visit to the stables for yet another collection of songs about ‘Horses’
“Just Like Them Horses” is a song recorded by American country artist Reba McEntire. It was composed by Liz Hengber and Tommy Lee James. The song was issued as a single via Nash Icon Records in 2016 and was the second third release spawned from Reba’s 2015 album Love Somebody. “Just Like Them Horses” was generally met with favourable reviews and charted on the American country songs survey in 2016. A black and white music video was released at the same time of the single’s announcement. The video’s concept was created by Reba herself, who filmed it using drones at a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. Also featured in the video is Reba’s mother, Jacqueline McEntire.
“No Horses” is a 2017 stand-alone single released by the American rock band Garbage, and was recorded and released to coincide with the band’s co-headlining Rage and Rapture tour with Blondie, as well as the release of the band’s coffee table book This is the Noise That Keeps Me Awake. At the time, Garbage drummer Butch Vig mooted that “No Horses” could the lead single for Garbage’s seventh studio album. In 2021, “No Horses” would ultimately be included on the deluxe edition bonus disc of that album, No Gods No Masters. All proceeds from the sales/streams of “No Horses” were donated to the Red Cross until the end of 2018.
“Only the Horses” is a song by American band Scissor Sisters. The track is the first single from their fourth studio album, Magic Hour. It premiered in April 2012 on BBC Radio 1, and was released to various iTunes Stores as a single a week later in Europe and was released in May 2012 in the United Kingdom. Scissor Sisters worked with producers Boys Noize and Calvin Harris on the track, after having met Harris while working with Kylie Minogue on her eleventh studio album, Aphrodite.
Pale Horses” is a song by American electronica musician Moby. It was released as the second single from his ninth studio album ‘Wait For Me’ in June 2009. Vocals on the song are performed by Amelia Zirin-Brown. The “Pale Horses” music video was directed and animated by Elanna Allen. It features the alien “Little Idiot”, depicted on the Wait for Me cover. The video depicts the alien, seeking company, creating several drawings which come to life, beginning with a replica of himself, which is washed away by rain. He later draws a dog and a train which he uses to travel to the Moon, where he draws an entire crowd of replicas to dance with, until they too are washed away by rain, leaving him alone once again.
“Runaway Horses” is a song by The Killers. This song finds Brandon Flowers recounting the story of him and an ambitious “small town girl.” They fall in love and she puts her dreams on ice so they can marry. But the “runaway horses” eventually change courses and go on different paths. Flowers wrote this as a duet and recruited Phoebe Bridgers to add a “female element” to the vocals. He told NME: “She has a little bit of Wild West in her. She has rodeo people in her bloodline. She brought a sadness to the song that’s integral to it, but also inherent in her. It was the perfect combination.” The track opens with a recording of a woman describing a sad remembrance of a horse breaking its leg at a Utah rodeo event.
“They Shoot Horses Don’t They?” is a track by Racing Cars. The song was inspired by the 1969 American film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? about a marathon dance-competition. Keyboard player Simon Davies recalled to Mojo magazine February 2011 that it, “was the perfect pop song at three minutes 45 seconds. The chorus had the perfect hook and I’m sure the success of the film helped tremendously. Even now, when it has airplay, presenters still associate it with the film and claim it was on the soundtrack – it never was.” Despite the song’s commercial success, the band didn’t see it as chart material. “‘Horses’ was the throwaway song on Downtown Tonight,” recalled guitarist Graham Williams to Mojo, who thought of Racing Cars as an album band. “Our manager and the record company thought differently – one day during rehearsals our manager walked in and declared, ‘I don’t want to hear you in the pursuit of excellence, I just want you to give them something, to sing along to.”‘
