Born Free

Original Soundtrack

1966

Lyric by Don Black

LP: MGM SE-4368
CD: FSMCD Vol. 7, No. 10

Main Title (2:39)
The Hunt (3:13)
Elsa at Play (4:36)
The Death of Pati (3:34)
Waiting for Joy (1:57)
Killing at Kiunga (2:35)
Born Free (2:48) [vocal by Matt Monro]
Holiday with Elsa (2:47)
Flirtation (4:07)
Warthog Hunt (2:20)
Flight of the Lioness (2:37)
Reunion/Born Free (5:41)

Re-Recording

CD: Varese Serabande 302 066 084 2
Performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Frederic Talgorn

Main Title (2:52)
The Hunt (3:17)
Feeding Time (1:57)
Elsa at Play (5:29)
Playtime (3:22)
The Death of Pati (3:40)
Killing at Kiunga (2:34)
Waiting for Joy (2:16)
Holiday With Elsa (4:04)
Elephant Stampede (2:40)
The New Reserve (3:41)
Flirtation (3:20)
Abandoning Elsa (1:54)
Elsa's Kill (:46)
Fight of the Lioness (2:50)
Wild and Free (1:42)
Reunion-Born Free (6:20)

The Movie

The story of Joy Adamson and her husband in Africa, and the Elsa the lioness. What can I say? It's a classic, though it seems to be overlooked lately. It almost never seems to run on tv.

The Music

There's not much to say about this other than "Born Free" was huge. It became a standard, covered by everybody who could sing, an anthem for the civil rights and animal rights movements.

The interesting thing about it is that Barry and the director were at odds over the music. Barry saw it as a Disney movie and scored it as such. When push came to shove, the producer sided with Barry. Not a bad decision, since Barry won two of his five Oscars for this single project.

Release Notes

Barry won two Oscars (Best Score and Best Song) and the LP sold huge. But when CD media became available—this never got re-released. For awhile Verese's re-recording by Frederic Talgorn was the only CD commercially available, but Film Score Monthly finally got it released on CD. The track listing is identical to the LP except the timings on the CD are a few seconds longer on each.

The LP version of Born Free can also be found on the bootleg CD Barryola.