Wake Up With Dewey Cox’s ‘A Beautiful Ride’

ThIs is the final scene of “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” a grossly overlooked movie and a criminally under-appreciated performance by John C. Reilly, who is truly one of the entertainment industry’s five tool players. He can do everything from “Boogie Nights” to “Gangs of New York” to “Chicago” to several of the best comedies of this generation. And this song is one of his greatest moments.

“A Beautiful Ride” is at the same time funny, poignant, and poignantly funny. It works not just as a punchline to “Walk Hard” and a parody of all musical biopic endings, but a sort of meta-commentary on itself. Plus it’s simply a good piece of music.

If I don’t make it through this pandemic, either succumbing to the virus (not likely) or the Irish Rose gets sick of my nonsense and smothers me with a pillow (not probable) or my liver gives out from all the drinking (more probable than not), I’m asking that one of the other Barstool writers post this song as my memorial.