Brave Man
1953



Listen

Highlights
  • Written as the title song for the 1954 Paramount Pictures film Red Garters, starring Rosemary Clooney, Guy Mitchell, Jack Carson, Pat Crowley, Gene Barry, Cass Daley and Joanne Gilbert.
  • Reb Randall rides into town seeking his brother’s murder in this raucous spoof of the western film genre filmed in the stylized fashion of a Broadway musical.
  • The soundtrack on Columbia Records was released as a ten-inch LP combining soundtrack recordings with studio re-creations conducted by Percy Faith and Mitch Miller.
  • The film was originally released in 3-D which, combined with the stylized sets and somewhat stagey acting gave it the effect of a Broadway musical filmed in the theater.
  • The stylized sets were inspired by an article in Life Magazine about the western Yellow Sky. The article showed the cast of Yellow Sky on sets, which were clearly only false fronts, as are the sets in this film.
  • Red Garters was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction.
  • BRAVE MAN is performed in the film by Rosemary Clooney.



Recording History
Rosemary Clooney and Guy Mitchell, Red Garters, Columbia Records, CL 6282, 1954
Rosemary Clooney and Percy Faith, Tomorrow I'll Dream and Remember / Brave Man, Columbia Records, 40187
Lily Connors, Timeless Vintage Australian Country Volume 11, Timeless Music Company, 2011
Drago Diklic, Yugoslavia, SY-1013, 1958
Ronnie Hawkins, The Folk Ballads of Ronnie Hawkins, Roulette, 1960
Burl Ives and Gordon Jenkins, True Love Goes On and On / Brave Man, Decca, 1954
The Tumbleweeds, The Golden Years of the Tumbleweeds, Viking Sevenseas, New Zealand, VP490CD, 2005
Lyrics
A brave man will die in the morning,
Being true to his code.
Two men will fire at a given warning,
One will return down the road.
 
Goodbye Jane, good-bye Joel
One will return down the road.
That is the code of the West.
That is the code of the West!
 
Now one man is kind of a stranger,
One a man we all trust. 
They’re both too proud to retreat from danger.
Soon one will lie in the dust.
 
Goodbye Jane, good-bye Joel
Soon one will lie in the dust.
That is the code of the West.
That is the code of the West!
 
They don’t claim to hate one another,
But they’re caught in the web.
Sometimes a man has to fight his brother.
Pity Raphael and poor Reb!
 
Goodbye Jane, good-bye Joel
Pity Raphael and poor Reb.
That is the code of the West.
That is the code of the West!
 
A man must be true to his honor
Or be scorned by the crowd;
And though we know one will be a goner,
He’ll meet his Maker unbowed!
 
Goodbye Jane, good-bye Joel
He’ll meet his Maker unbowed.
That is the code of the West.
That is the code of the West!
 
It’s easy to live as a coward.
Some may say this is best;
Your heroes die just as life has flowered.
That is the code of the West!
 
BRAVE MAN as sung by Rosemary Clooney in the Paramount Picture Red Garters. Music and words by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.