After reading through archived comments I had on my last song (“Daybreak ^[1]“), I found myself feeling a bit nostalgic – so I decided to make today’s song another oldy-but-goody.

Honky-Tonk Villain has a bit of a history behind it. I was originally commissioned to write this piece for a flash animation parody of the silent-film era. (I’ve scoured the web for the original flash file but can’t find it anywhere, sadly.) After finishing that project, I didn’t do much with this song – after all, it’s not exactly fitting for video game composing, which is what I mostly focus on.

However, while working on the same game project associated with the aforementioned “Daybreak,” I needed to come up with a character theme for a particularly bad-ass villain character (appropriately titled “The Dragon”). This bad-ass villain was actually based off one of the writers on the project (and a good friend of mine), so the intent was for me to really put together something befitting an evil mastermind.

You can imagine the response when I submitted this piece for consideration. To quote the writer/inspiration:

“This is so typical of the relationship between Tanner and I. He threw this in there because he knew I’d roll out of my chair laughing, and sure enough, I was bowling over by the second bar! I can picture him giggling like a little schoolgirl as he’s composing this piece with me in mind, and I’m giggling like a little schoolgirl (a huge, demented little schoolgirl, with a menthol burning between his fingers :p ) writing this review. I think this could work as my theme with a little adjustment. ;) This one gets a 9/10 just because of his sense of humor. :D”

(For the record, I did giggle like a schoolgirl upon submitting the piece.)

Anyway, thanks for indulging my momentary nostalgia – and be sure to think of a moustached villain in a cape tying an innocent woman to a set of train tracks while this song plays. Fitting, no?