happy tunesday! never kill a man twice

This week, for Tunesday, one of my own. "Never Kill a Man Twice."

Care for a bit of a shaggy dog story?

Years ago, I was trying to write a Western song. Not a modern Nashville-flavored song with C&W twang. That's not to say I don;t appreciate such things. I do. But I wanted to write something else. I never did succeed. I came kind of close with "Five Missing One." Anyway, while this was on my mind, I thought of a title -- "Bleed Me a River." I don't remember when I thought of the title, but I do remember that I was at the Tucson Botanical Garden -- a place my family and I visited at least once a year. I started writing "Bleed Me a River." I never did finish. The lyrics were quite negative. Premeditated murder for revenge. That kind of thing. Maybe I'll finish it some day.

At some point, though, I decided that the phrase could have worked well as the title of a Spaghetti Western. Remember, we're talking about a movie genre that includes titles such as Find a Place to Die, Death Rides a Horse and My Horse, My Gun, Your Widow. It didn't take long to come up with a general idea of the plotline. It actually used the half-written song as a jumping off point. So I started working on a screenplay. I described it as "a film in the tradition of Spaghetti Westerns," and got help from my friend, Keith Crocker, a film historian who has made a couple features himself.*

I never did finish the script. I'll have to get back to that. At any rate, I ran into a problem with the plot. One character had tried to kill another. He actually had left him for dead. But now, later in the film, when the man he had tried to kill is coming after him, he avoids a showdown and eschews chances to kill him. How to explain it? Perhaps there are better ways than what I came up with. I had his lover ask him about it. And he cryptically responded, "Mama always said, 'Never kill a man twice.'"

So, the script still needs revisiting, but at some point I realized that "Never Kill a Man Twice" would make a catchy song title. And the rest is history.

Come to think of it, "Never Kill a Man Twice" would have been a great title for a Spaghetti Western too.
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*And who has cast me in his next feature, but that's neither here nor there.