4 Songs Performed by Actor Peter Fonda, Including His Debut Single Written by Gram Parsons

In 1969, actor Peter Fonda intended for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to write an original soundtrack for Easy Rider, but his co-screenwriter and director, Dennis Hopper, vetoed the idea. Hopper wanted more contemporary rock songs and didn’t think the band fit the grittier nature of the film.

The soundtrack ended up featuring Jimi Hendrix (“If 6 Was”), The Byrds’ (“Wasn’t Born to Follow”), songs by Steppenwolf (“The Pusher,” “Born to Be Wild”), and The Band’s “The Weight,” along with two more contributions by the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn, including “Ballad of Easy Rider,” also credited to Bob Dylan.

“Peter Fonda and I had been friends since I worked with Bobby Darin,” recalled McGuinn in 2025. “We kept up a relationship over the years.”

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Around this time, Fonda, who co-owned Chisa Records with Masekela and Larry Spector, started working on an album with McGuinn and his former Byrds bandmate David Crosby. They recorded 16 tracks. But the album was eventually shelved by Fonda, who didn’t think it was up to standard for release.

“That was my right,” said Fonda in his 1999 memoir, Don’t Tell Dad. “It simply wasn’t there.”

During the 1960s through the late 1970s, Fonda had already started exploring music and singing, around two films he had starred in.

[RELATED: 3 Songs Jack Nicholson Sang or Wrote, Including One Written for The Monkees]

“November Night” (1967)

Written by Gram Parsons

While working on Roger Corman’s 1967 psychedelic drama, The Trip, a film written by actor Jack Nicholson, Fonda first crossed paths with Gram Parsons. In the film, which explores the 60s LSD subculture, Fonda plays Peter Groves, a television commercial director who faces the end of his marriage and looks for an escape when his friend John, the “guru,” played by Bruce Dern, introduces him to LSD, setting him on a hallucinatory and emotional journey.

Fonda suggested that Parsons’ band, the International Submarine Band, supply a song for the soundtrack. Then, jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, who heard Fonda playing guitar at a party, encouraged the actor to sing. Co-produced by Masekela, “November Night” was written by Parsons for Fonda. He released it as a single, along with a B-side cover of Donovan’s 1965 folk song “Catch the Wind.” Fonda sings and plays guitar on the track.

“I heard it and said to Gram, ‘That’s terrific,’” recalled Fonda in Sid Griffin’s 1985 book Gram Parsons: A Music Biography. “I recorded it [‘November Night’], and Gram said how thrilled he was. He taught me how to play it, and I went and practiced it and practiced it and went out and cut it.”

“November Night” is a psychedelic-folk song set around a lucid love story in the midst of a trip.

You say that you’re restless 
You say that you know me too well 
You’ve seen all my best, and you’ve heard 
All the stories I tell 
You think you’ve been taken for granted
You’re probably right

I’ll remember a November Night, 
When the dawn on your doorway 
Shone white with frost 
And the soft love that always began 
With the touch of your hand 
And recall the mornings that tossed 
Your hair in the wind

“Outlaw Blues” (1977)

Written by John Oates

A decade after releasing “November Night,” Fonda recorded more music, singing three songs on the soundtrack to his 1977 film Outlaw Blues, the Richard T. Heffron-helmed drama, also co-starring Susan Saint James. In the film, Fonda stars as Bobby Ogden, an ex-convict trying to make it as a Country music star. The theme song is one of four tracks sung by Fonda in the film, and was written by John Oates, of Hall & Oates.

“Jailbird’s Can’t Fly” (1977)

Written by Harland Sanders and R.C. O’Leary

Throughout the film, Fonda is seen performing around Austin, Texas, including the Soap Creek Saloon, and has a regular set of songs. One of those songs is “Jailbirds Can’t Fly.” The lyrics follow the self-doubts following life: Some birds are born to glide the valleys and the mountains high / But the lord didn’t put wings on a jailbird, so I guess I was never meant to fly.

“Water For My Horses” (1977)

Written by Hoyt Axton

Singer and actor Hoyt Axton’s “Water for My Horses” is also part of Fonda’s setlist. The song was originally written and released by Axton on his 1977 album Snowblind Friend before it was featured in the film. On the Outlaw Blues soundtrack, Axton performs “Whisper In A Velvet Night.” He also co-wrote “Beyond These Walls,” performed by Steve Fromholz, along with “I Dream of Highways” with Renée Armand, sung by Fonda and Susan Saint James.

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