With just days to go before the premiere of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, the excitement is mounting to a fever pitch. Why? Because we have so many more Ghost Rider songs to share and so little time! Plus, there’s a raging controversy around the Ghost Rider that’s drawing even more attention to the film.

If you haven’t been following the story, Gary Friedrich is in legal hot water with Marvel over the rights to the flaming, skull-headed character. From a legal standpoint, Marvel maintains that they created Ghost Rider. While Gary is the one who wrote the first story.

I’ll let the lawyers work it out, but I have to mention once again that the song Ghost Riders In The Sky (“created” by Stan Jones but based on the melody of When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again) came FIRST, then came the western character who rode horseback in comic books from Magazine Enterprises, then Marvel’s own version of the cowboy character, and THEN came the motorcycle-riding, leather-clad, hot-head on which the new movie is based. It’s easy to see why there’s debate over who “created” a character that has passed through so many variations. Just sayin’.

To celebrate this silliness and put it in perspective like only he can do, we have the one and only Spike Jones who gives us his unique take on Ghost Riders In The Sky. That’s Spike on clarinet. The City Slickers provide the skulls.

Click the links below to listen.

Ghost Riders in the Sky - Spike Jones