Posted by Aubrey on 09/24/2022

In this post, I’ll try to put together what has been previously unearthed about the music that has played from the Disneyland Frontierland Stockade.

There appear to be a few different forms of the loop:

  1. 1955 - ca. 1975: No music (likely)

  2. ca. 1975 - 1992: Stockade Loop v.1

  3. ca. 1992 - 2012: Stockade Loop v.2

  4. 2012 - Present Day: General Frontierland loop (introduced in 2012)

Stockade Loop v.1

This loop has been cited in a few different places [1, 2] as being composed of a single song:

  1. Western Saloon - Ib Glindemann (composer) - Capitol Hi-”Q” Reel X-75

This track was released as part of the Capitol Records Hi-”Q” production music line as track 3 on reel X-75 [1, 2]. There’s a chance that it was later re-released on Media Music release MEDS-4, but I haven’t verified that yet. This song was apparently re-recorded by a Disney studio musician as on-board music for the Mark Twain that played between narration snippets, at a slower pace [3]. This song is included in DisneyChris’ “A Day at Disneyland” torrent, and can be listened to on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK6B6ABFIt8

Stockade Loop v.2

There are a few conflicting reports on this loop, as it only played out of one or two speakers and was pretty quiet [1, 4]. I don’t know of any reference recordings floating around, so we have to rely on what was previously reported (sidenote: if recordings were allowed to be shared on Magic Music, I think we would have a lot more figured out…).

This loop was initially reported as being about five songs with banjo, fife, and drum instrumentation, and lasted around 7 minutes as all the tracks are relatively short [4, 8]. Several sources have reported these tracks as originating from the complete soundtrack of Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary, apparently purchased by Eddie Sotto in the 90’s [8]. As the tracks listed below also appear in some form on the shorter, commercially available soundtrack, it is supposed that they are indeed from the commercial soundtrack and not the unreleased portion of the soundtrack, but this is unconfirmed.

There have been specific reports of hearing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” [4], “Battle Cry of Freedom” [5, 8]. Turnstle reported that the only track that they recognized from the Civil War soundtrack as having played at the Stockade was the “Drums of War”, but they did not detail what sort of a recording they were referencing [5].

The loop disappeared when the 2012 Frontierland loop was installed [5].

This initial track listing was posted on Magic Music and the Disney Music Loops site [3, 6].

  1. Drums of War

  2. Battle Cry of Freedom