35 Years After His Death, Lane Frost Is Still Inspiring Country Music
It’s one of the saddest and most compelling stories in rodeo history. And with the way country & Western music is so synonymous with the rodeo, it’s no surprise country music has taken a large share of inspiration from it. 35 years ago today—July 30th 1989—Lane Frost took what has come to be known as “The Last Ride,” climbing atop a Brahma bull and completing a successful 85-point ride before dismounting, and eventually perishing from internal injuries after the bull turned on him.
Lane Frost was the 1987 PRCA World Champion bull rider, as well as the National High School Bull Riding Champion in 1981, and the bull riding champion of the first Youth National Finals in Fort Worth in 1982. Originally from Utah, Lane Frost started riding calves at the age of five. As he continued to show promise in the rodeo, his family moved to Oklahoma where Lane went to high school.
But during the Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1989 after his ride on the bull Takin’ Care of Business, Frost dismounted in the mud, the bull turned, knocked him over, and pressed his right horn into Lane’s abdomen, causing fatal injuries. Lane Frost was 25 years old.
The 1994 film 8 Seconds starring Luke Perry is based on the life and death of Lane Frost. Lane was also best friends with bull riding champion Tuff Hedeman.
Rodeo fans know the story of Lane Frost back and forth, and so do many country fans, even if they’re not particularly into the rodeo. Not only has Lane Frost been canonized in country songs for many years, those songs often tend to distinguish themselves in an artist’s catalog, in part due to the inspiration they draw from the champion bull rider and his tragic story.
One of the first songs about Lane Frost was released in 1993 by the Bakersfield, CA-based country group the Smokin’ Armadillos. “Red Rock” from their Curb Records release Out Of The Burrow is arguably the band’s most popular song. It’s about the famous ProRodeo Hall of Fame bull named Red Rock that Lane Frost became the only one to successfully ride for 8 seconds in the rodeo world’s Challenge of the Champions.
“There were seven tough battles between the two gods
And everyone thought the bull had the odds
But the man had heart, and red finally lost
Four, eight second rides to the mighty Lane Frost”
In 2012, Aaron Watson’s “July In Cheyenne (For Lane’s Momma)” off his album Real Good Time is the song that many credit as the definitive tribute to Lane Frost, as well as the track responsible for breaking Watson’s career wide open. It remains one of Watson’s most popular and well-recognized songs, and perhaps his best. It certainly earned Watson massive crowds on the rodeo circuit, setting the table for his 2015 release The Underdog, which ended up becoming a #1 album in country.
“In the rain and the mud in July in Cheyenne
They had to carry away that brave young man
A little part of every heart of every rodeo fan
Died there in the rain and the mud in July in Cheyenne”
Zach Bryan released 34 songs as part of his landmark 2022 album American Heartbreak. Though he gave a lot for fans to parse through, many immediately gravitated toward the song “Open The Gate,” and theorized it was about Lane Frost. Zach Bryan later confirmed this to be true, and that his middle name of “Lane” came from his parents’ admiration for Lane Frost.
“I heard you died out in Cheyenne
With my mother’s ring on your hand
A note in your pocket said I love you till I die
I can hear the bulls are coming to claim what they’ve been huntin’”
Then there is the entire 12-song soundtrack to the film 8 Seconds that includes a host of country greats, not limited to John Anderson, Vince Gill, Brooks & Dunn, Reba McEntire, and Mark Chesnutt. But the only song from the soundtrack that was specifically inspired by Lane Frost (though it doesn’t reference him directly) is called “Once In A While,” performed by Billy Dean, and written by John Bettis and Steve Dorff.
“That’s why we call them heroes
That’s why we know their names
And once you’ve heard their stories
You’re never quite the same”
Multiple tracks from Garth Brooks have always been thought to be inspired by Lane Frost who Garth was a fan of, but Garth has stopped short of ever confirming this. Most notable is Garth’s song “Beaches of Cheyenne,” which is about a bull rider that dies at Frontier Days just like Lane. But Garth says that the song was supposed to be satirical before it turned dark, and that Lane was never in the picture. Garth did put images of Lane Frost riding bulls in the video for his song “The Dance,” but it was part of a larger montage of people Garth was paying tribute to through the video.
Though Cody Johnson has never written, recorded, or performed a song for Lane Frost, as a former rodeo performer himself, he’s been caught shouting out Lane on numerous occasions, and appears in the Lane Frost documentary Life/Legend/Legacy (released TBD) saying in the trailer, “I think it’s important to keep Lane’s story alive, because you’re never going to have another story like it.”
The tributes to Lane Frost aren’t just resigned to country, or just to songs. In 2013, the video for the Kings of Leon song “Beautiful War” from their album Mechanical Bull was done in tribute to Lane Frost. For the satirical video for their song “Hold On” set at a rodeo, metal group Korn dedicated the video to Lane Frost.
There are likely other tributes out there to Lane Frost composed by songwriters and rodeo fans alike. But it’s quite astounding that 35 years after his death, the legacy of Lane Frost is still very much alive thanks in part to country music.
Lane Frost was larger than life while living. It was almost like he was immortal. And thanks in part to country music, he still is.
July 30, 2024 @ 7:01 am
8 Seconds was the first movie that made me shed tears.
July 30, 2024 @ 7:34 am
I tried to watch 8 Seconds, and didn’t know the whole story. About halfway through the film, I realized what the ending was going to be and was so broken up that I was unable to finish the movie. So sad.
July 30, 2024 @ 7:55 am
I want to preface my thought with the fact that i wasnt a direct fan of lane frost. While i have always enjoyed watching rodeo stuff when possible, i couldnt have told you who lane frost was back in july of 1989. Im sure he was a great guy so this isnt a personal attack on him but lots of times death particularly at a younger age, tends to create the legend and pulls on the heartstrings just a little more than if the person died later sitting in a nursing home. Music has some people like that, ritchie valens comes to mind. In Frosts case, he represents toughness and determination aa well as some other qualities to each individuals preference. Maybe he would have went on to more greatness, we will never know. But by going out the way he did and the time he did, a legend was born. Many a poor cowboy has met their end the same way. But like a famous movie line said, once the legend becomes a fact, you print the legend. I believe i got that right. Lanes legend has inspired a lot of people and thats a good thing. May he rest in peace.
July 30, 2024 @ 9:05 am
8 seconds is a powerful film and the film inspired soundtrack is a good listen. It is a sad story.
July 30, 2024 @ 2:51 pm
I haven’t listened to Smokin’ Armadillos in a long time. Thanks for the reminder!
July 30, 2024 @ 7:36 pm
I have the soundtrack of 8 Seconds on a CD but not yet seen the movie. I forgot about Red Rock. Listening to it now. Agreed that Aaron Watson song is a classic. Few years before that he released the album The Road and The Rodeo, which is great as well. Fitting I am going up to Wyoming at the end of the week. RIP Lane.
July 30, 2024 @ 9:51 pm
The positive: Lane’s parents were good people and worked a lot with the youth rodeo/bull riding scene in Eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, and North Texas. Most of us carried a Bible they supplied through the ministry in our bull bags back in the 90s. The movie also increased interest in the sport and may have helped early BRO (bull riders only) and PBR gain momentum.
The bad: The affairs in the movie embarrassed his parents, who were adamant that never happened. The movie also brought a dozen or so cliches to the rodeo scene, like “Let’s Go Boys.” Do people still do that? Hope not.
Also, Tuff Hedeman is a 100% asshole. That endearing streak he has in the movie? Yeah, I never saw that. He treats people around him like shit, and he blackballed the greatest relatively unknown bull rider of all time (Terry Don West) out of pure jealousy. Tuff got too much mileage from his portrayal in the movie.
The 8 Seconds soundtrack was good to my tween sensibilities. Probably wore out that cassette. The Red Rock song by the cowboy rappers? Cringe even to an early 90s, wannabe rodeo star, tween.
July 30, 2024 @ 11:40 pm
Ah, I left out maybe the most positive outcome of Lane’s accident and that movie: protective vests became non-negotiable. I’m not sure about their development history, but no one wore them before the movie came out. Within a year or two, everyone used one—those who didn’t have their own borrowed a friend’s. Lives were saved from those vests.
July 30, 2024 @ 11:19 pm
I hear that Tuff Hedeman thinks you’re a douchebag.
July 30, 2024 @ 11:44 pm
Excellent contribution.
July 31, 2024 @ 9:57 am
You just declared the guy to be an a-hole–and a “100%” one at that.
My “contribution” was intended to be in the spirit of what it was responding to.
July 31, 2024 @ 12:48 pm
35 years and they’re still talking about Lane Frost. That’s an accident that should never have happened. I was working for Pikes Peak rodeo at the time he came to my desk 3 minutes after 5:00. I refuse to take his entry because that’s what I was told to do. The next day I heard about his death and I wondered how he got in. Then someone came to me and said we have to let you go. I was a young single mother at that time and didn’t understand the whole thing and went back to South Dakota to live. But I did read up on a lot of it and could never have commented but it did bother me that I didn’t do something about it. So whatever you think of this article that your decision but I have reached the age of 83 now and want to say something even if it doesn’t do any good.
July 31, 2024 @ 2:08 pm
So you lost your job because you didn’t accept the late entry? I’m also confused. You said “Pikes Peak rodeo,” but did you mean to type Frontier Days instead? I don’t know the Pikes Peak rodeo history, but it’s hard to imagine it running the same weekend as Frontier Days.
You might be telling us that you denied Lane’s entry into Frontier Days, but someone else overruled you, and that was the day before the accident. Is that correct?
July 31, 2024 @ 6:29 am
Just returned from Cheyenne on Monday and Frontier Days is alive and well with plenty of people there wearing Lane Frost t-shirts.
July 31, 2024 @ 12:04 pm
Wore out two VHS tapes being a farm and ranch girl he was kinda an idol to me. The bull that took his like (Takin care of business) died when I was 9. Lane seemed to be a great man. One of greatest dreams is to make it to The Daddy of em all some day.
August 7, 2024 @ 11:47 am
Death is a terrible thing, but to die young and talented and attractive makes one a legend.