I like "Deborah's Theme" interspersed with the Main Title of OUATIA in the track "Friendship and Love" - talk about a sad song. I have to say "Deborah's Theme" of those two. It's up there with "Cockeye's Song", "Man With A Harmonica" and "Ecstasy of Gold" as my favorite songs from a Leone film.
I would choose Jill's theme. No doubt about it. It's flawless.
Morricone did not compose "Deborah's Theme," though he was responsible for effectively scoring it. The film credits José Maria LaCalle (aka Joseph M. LaCalle) as the composer of "Amapola" (Pretty Little Poppy), which serves as Deborah's theme.
Most prominent among [the period songs featured in the score] is “Amapola,” the beautiful standard to which young Deborah rehearses her ballet steps. Written in 1924 by Joseph M. Lacalle, it is arranged in several different forms by Morricone, including one in which it plays as counterpoint to “Deborah’s Theme.” The slow version with clarinet playing the melody is what Deborah plays on her old Victrola while Noodles spies on her through the peephole.
‘Amapola’ was to be heard first, in a 1924-style arrangement, on Deborah’s wind-up gramophone; later, in an over-lush string arrangement, played by the seaside restaurant orchestra during Noodles’ big night out. The tune was also to be woven into Morricone’s ‘Deborah’s Theme’—transposed from A to E major—as if the two had blended in Noodles’ memory.
Tough call, very tough call, at present as I'm listening to it, I'm gonna have to go with Jills. It reminds me of a certain theme in The Searchers when Ethan is about to leave his brothers house with Bond and his brothers wife comes over and gives him a coat, this presentation of the theme to me reminds me of certain renditions of Jill's theme in OUATITW.