The opening song to Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho is an important aspect of the film, as it highlights and foreshadows many of the major plot points.
The opening song of Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho carries a special meaning in the story. The film follows Mike Milo (Clint Eastwood), a once-great rodeo star who was severely inured on the job leading to issues with drugs and alcohol. In the twilight of his career as a horse trainer, Milo is let go from his position, but then hired by his former boss to go down to Mexico and retrieve his son, Rafo (Eduardo Minett), from the boy’s unstable mother. While escorting Rafo through rural Mexico, Milo and the boy are forced to hide out in a small town where they meet Marta (Natalia Traven), a friendly widow who develops a love interest with Milo.
Eastwood’s Cry Macho opens with the song, “Find A New Home,” by Will Banister. It’s a somber tune played on the acoustic guitar with deeper vocals typical of the classical Country/Western genre. The lyrics focus on a character who has made many past mistakes and finds himself alone. It evokes a sad sense of nostalgia, but each verse is concluded with the hopeful line, “It’s never too late to find a new home.”
Cry Macho‘s opening song is perfect because it establishes the tone of the story. The lyrics immerse the audience in the mindset of Eastwood’s character right from the beginning and describe the lonely cowboy’s circumstances. Some lines of the song also serve to foreshadow the ending of Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho. If viewers listen closely to the lyrics of “Find A New Home”, they will realize that the words reveal Mike Milo’s backstory. The song opens with,”Lord I’ve made my share of mistakes, but I meant no wrong;” it’s a clear reference to Milo’s sordid past and previous struggle with substance abuse after his injury. It goes on to say, “Now the rooms are all empty and my pillow’s gone cold,” indicating the speaker’s loneliness. Milo later reveals his own loneliness following the past deaths of his wife and children in a car accident.
The song also foreshadows the ending of Cry Macho and provides a sense of hope to offset the rather tragic state in which Milo first appears. A line in the song’s second verse says, “Took a long time to find her, even longer to let her go;” this alone could refer to Milo’s deceased wife, but the following line, “But the good days were the best days I’ve ever known,” makes it more likely that the song is foreshadowing his eventual relationship with Marta.
Since Milo suggests that his time with his first wife was marred by his substance abuse and “macho” attitude, the best days he has known is a much more apt description for his time with Marta after he has helped Rafo and forgiven himself for his past failings. The refrain of “It’s never too late to find a new home” also foreshadows Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho character eventually settling down with Marta as well as granting the audience a sense of optimism at the start of the movie that the gruff cowboy can be redeemed.
Will Banister’s “Find A New Home” is the ideal song to open Cry Macho. The up-and-coming country music star perfectly encapsulates the tone of the movie with his moving acoustic performance, traditional sounding croon, and inspired lyrics. The melody stands as a distinctly strong aspect of the neo-western success that is Cry Macho.
