Clippity-Clop

After a weekend at Las Vegas, Nev., Songwriters Johnny Lange, Walter Henry ("Hy") Heath and Fred Glickman were driving back to Hollywood, and getting what enjoyment they could from the desert scenery. On their way through Death Valley they spotted an occasional prospector trudging along beside his burro. "Nobody said anything at first," recalls dark-eyed Johnny Lange, "but then it occurred to us, like spontaneous combustion, you might say, that here was an idea for a song." They forgot the scenery, worked out words & music before they hit Hollywood. Glickman, who owns a small recording company, made a master record of it but did not press any copies. The boys all forgot about it.

Last September, Glickman came across the record in his files. Says Lange: "It sounded like something I had never heard before. I was floored. But I knew that right there we had a hot hit." With its fast clippity-clop rhythm (actually a good deal faster than a burro's), it sounded like a poor man's Riders in the Sky. And with the U.S. hungry for what the trade calls "oat" or "popcorn" songs, Lange was right about the hot hit. After Vaughn Monroe, Frankie Laine, Bing Crosby, et. al. had taken a ride on it, Mule Train last week was clippity-clopping out of every jukebox and radio right across the nation:

Mule Train (loo, loo, loo) Mule Train (loo, loo, loo) Clippity-cloppin' over hill and plain, Seems as how they never stop Clippity-clop, clippity-clop . . .

As with Buttons and Bows, which was already a little stale before Bob Hope got a chance to be heard singing it in The Paleface, the precipitant fame of Mule Train was slightly embarrassing to Republic Pictures, which had bought it for a spot in a new movie, Singing Guns. With Mule Train record sales expected to pass the two-million mark, Republic could only hope that its song would not be worn out before Singing Guns (starring Vaughn Monroe) comes along next month.

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