Come Wander with Me

The "Rock-A-Billy Kid", Floyd Burney, arrives at a small town in search of a new song. He is directed to a dilapidated shop in the woods run by a reclusive old man. After his offer of money in exchange for an original song is rebuffed, Floyd hears a voice singing and wanders off through the woods, not seeing a nearby tombstone inscribed with his name.

Next to a lake, he encounters a pretty but mysterious woman, Mary Rachel, who reluctantly plays a song for him about two lovers who meet in the woods and are torn apart by tragedy. Floyd offers to buy the song rights from her, but she claims it isn't for sale. As he tries to seduce her, a jealous young man named Billy Rayford with a rifle shows up and confronts Floyd. Billy intends to take Floyd back to his brothers so that they can deal with him, but Floyd resists and kills Rayford.

Mary Rachel's song reflects the event, and foreshadows a future attack. As Floyd runs off, he looks back and sees that Mary Rachel's clothes have changed; she is now dressed in black, with a black shawl, mourning.

Soon, Billy Rayford's brothers arrive to chase after Floyd. As he prepares to flee, Mary Rachel begs him to stay, hoping things will be different "this time". She implies that these same events have occurred before. Ignoring her, he runs away and finds himself back at the shop in the woods. The old man declines to help him hide, and in his anger, Floyd kills the old man, then hides among the old musical instruments in the shop.

Billy Rayford's three brothers arrive at the shop, see the old man's body, and when Floyd bumps a music box, the brothers close in on him and shoot him. The camera returns to the image of the tombstone in the first scene, thus fulfilling the prophecy within the song that Floyd would die.

Production notes [edit]

According to The Twilight Zone Companion, Liza Minnelli auditioned for the role of Mary Rachel, but was so nervous during the audition she was rejected. Although this was the third-to-last episode broadcast, this was the last episode in the series to be filmed. (The last original episode to be broadcast was "The Bewitchin' Pool". The very last episode to be broadcast during the original run -- as a repeat -- was "The Jeopardy Room".)

In an interview, episode director Richard Donner stated he thought Bonnie Beecher "was going to become a very important actress" and asserted that he (not Bill Froug) selected Beecher over Minelli for the role because he thought she was "incredible."^[1]

According to The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute, by Carol Serling and Douglas Brode, in this episode which aired May 22, 1964, "Gary Crosby played the first Bob Dylan-style 'folkie' to appear on the small screen."^[2] In reality, some of Dylan's earliest recordings had been recorded at Beecher's Minneapolis home in 1961.^[3]

Contrasted against writer Anthony Wilson's other writing and production efforts, the episode is tersely described as "poor" in Irwin Allen Television Productions, 1964-1970,^[4] and as possessing "twists and turns that render it virtually incoherent" in The Twilight Zone Companion^[5]

The song ("Come Wander With Me") [edit]

The "Come Wander With Me" song was composed by Jeff Alexander and Anthony Wilson and sung by actress Bonnie Beecher. The song is built into the story. It builds verse by verse together with the events in the episode. Parts of the lyrics are not complete, since two of the ten verses are not sung in full. The song has been used in several places since its 1964 broadcast. It was covered by The Gathering's former vocalist Anneke Van Giersbergen on her solo record Air, released under the moniker of Agua de Annique. It was featured on the soundtrack of Vincent Gallo's 2003 film The Brown Bunny. It was included on the compilation Late Night Tales: Air. It was also used as background music in Belgian director Koen Mortier's 2006 television commercial "Angels" for Dutch insurance company RVS. The ad shows flying men with open umbrellas inspired by René Magritte's Golconda.^[6] Lacoste also used it in an ad for their fragrance "Love of Pink". It was also covered by the band British Sea Power for their Man Of Aran soundtrack, and sung by Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta during the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group tour in 2011. An instrumental version of the song was also used by Jeff Alexander as part of his score for Jerry Thorpes 1968 western Day of the Evil Gun starring Glenn Ford.

References [edit]

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

^ Stanyard, Stewart T. (2007).Dimensions Behind The Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tribute to Television's Groundbreaking Series. ECW Press, p. 102. Retrieved 2012-11-25.
^ Brode, Douglas; Serling, Carol (2009). Rod Serling and The twilight zone: the 50th anniversary tribute. Barricade Books, p. 203. ISBN 978-1569803585. Retrieved 2012-11-25.
^ "Set Lists : May 01, 1961 : The Home of Bonnie Beecher". BobDylan.com. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
^ Abbott, John (2009). Irwin Allen Television Productions, 1964-1970: A Critical History of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. McFarland; p. 23. ISBN: 978-0786444915
^ Zicree, Marc Scott (1992). The Twilight Zone Companion. Silman-James Press. p. 425. ISBN: 978-1879505094
^ RVS: Angels

External links [edit]

"Come Wander With Me" at the Internet Movie Database

v t e Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgement Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander With Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

Contents

Plot [edit]

Production notes [edit]

The song ("Come Wander With Me") [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]