The Toy Story franchise is iconic for so many reasons, and one of those is its music. Songs like “You’ve Got A Friend In Me” and “When She Loved Me” are legendary, and now Chris Stapleton has joined this esteemed universe. It turns out that he sings a new song for the Toy Story 4 soundtrack, a Randy Newman-penned, old school country tune called “The Ballad Of The Lonesome Cowboy.”
Stapleton said of the track, “To me, what has made the Toy Story films hold up over time has been the strength of the stories and the songs and the writing and the characters. There’s something for people of all ages to enjoy in the world that is Toy Story. It’s a tremendous honor to get to sing a Randy Newman song in what is without question one of the most iconic animated franchises in history.”
Newman described the song, saying, “Woody feels like he was a lonesome cowboy until someone comes along and changes his world.” He added about the movie more broadly, “I have great affection for the films, and it was good to be back in that world again. Important things are happening to people we love. There’s plenty of action, but there’s a lot of deeper stuff. This picture had a lot of opportunity to do things of some depth emotionally — but not overdo it.”
Listen to “The Ballad Of The Lonesome Cowboy” above.
