"The Ecstasy of Gold" () is a musical composition by

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone ( , ; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, Orchestration, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter, and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 film score, scores for cinema and televisi ...

, part of his score for the 1966

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone ( ; ; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. Leone's film-making style ...

film ''

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' (, literally "''The good, the ugly, the bad''") is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach a ...

''. It is played while Tuco (

Eli Wallach Eli Herschel Wallach ( ; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. Known for his character actor roles, his entertainment career spanned over six decades. He received a British Aca ...

) is frantically searching a cemetery for the grave that holds $200,000 in gold coins (). Sung by

Edda Dell'Orso Edda Sabatini (born February 16, 1935), known as Edda Dell'Orso, is an Italian singer known for her collaboration with composer Ennio Morricone, for whom she provided wordless vocals to a large number of his film scores. A soprano with a three-o ...

, it stands as one of the best known of Morricone's themes and one of the most iconic pieces of cinematic score in history.

Appearances in other media

By other musicians

* An instrumental metal cover by

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

appears on the 2007 Morricone tribute album '' We All Love Ennio Morricone''. It reached #21 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock charts and was nominated for a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

in the category of

Best Rock Instrumental Performance The Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance was an honor presented to recording artists for quality instrumental rock performances at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958, and ended after the 2011 award, and orig ...

. The band has used the original soundtrack recording to open up their concerts since 1983. * Jay-Z sampled the beat in his song "Blueprint 2" on his 2002 album '' The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse''. * The main melody and vocals are sampled in the 2022

glitch hop Glitch is a genre of experimental electronic music that emerged in the 1990s, which is distinguished by the deliberate use of glitches in audio media and other sonic artifacts. The sounds featured in glitch tracks usually come from audio record ...

song "Ecstasy of Soul" by electronic artists

Zeds Dead Zeds Dead is a Canadian electronic music duo from Toronto consisting of Dylan Mamid, also known as DC, and Zachary Rapp-Rovan, also known as Hooks. The duo rose to prominence releasing original music and remixes from 2009 to 2010 before becoming ...

and

GRiZ Grant Richard Kwiecinski (born May 31, 1990), also known by his stage name GRiZ, is an American DJ, songwriter, and electronic music producer from Southfield, Michigan. He is known for playing the saxophone along with producing funk, electro-soul ...

. The song peaked at #19 on the US

Dance/Electronic Songs Hot Dance/Electronic Songs (formerly Dance/Electronic Songs) is a record chart has been published weekly by ''Billboard'' since January 2013. It is their first chart to be published that ranks the most popular dance and electronic songs according ...

chart. In Films • the song was used in the 2015 film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water on Spongebob’s speech scene.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ecstasy of Gold, The 1966 compositions 1966 songs Compositions in A minor Dollars Trilogy Ennio Morricone songs Film theme songs Metallica songs