The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon

"The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" was a song sung by Steven Taylor, accompanied by Dodo Chaplet on the piano. They were forced to perform the song at gunpoint in the Last Chance Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona, when they were mistaken for companions of Doc Holliday. Their "hijackers" became suspicious when Dodo mentioned "the Doctor", and they noticed that Steven was wearing guns. They wanted to satisfy themselves that Steven and Dodo were indeed "thespians", as they claimed, and used the song as a test of the duo's performance skills. (DW: The Gunfighters)

Behind the scenes

The ballad was an original song specially composed for the 1966 serial, The Gunfighters. As performed by Lynda Baron, the song also provided "Greek chorus"-like narration for the story. It had about twenty verses, although some were duplicates in different tempos and orchestrations. There would not be another original song commissioned for Doctor Who until the rap song featured in 1988's The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.