cowboy songbook

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    COWBOY POETRY & SONGBOOKrevised 2008

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    Laugh kills lonesome- C. Russell

    GRANT-KOHRS RANCH National Historic SiteDeer Lodge, Montana

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    Table of contents:

    From the real open range era-1880

    From the Lomaxs collection-1900s

    From the Dude Ranching era-1925

    From the Cowboy Movies-1950s

    From the current CowboyRenaissance era -1975

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    6. Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sandflows leisurely down the stream;Where the graceful white swan goes gliding alongLike a maid in a heavenly dream.

    7. Then I would not exchange my home on the range,Where the deer and the antelope play;Where seldom is heard a discouraging wordAnd the skies are not cloudy all day.

    Attributed to Dr. Brewster Higley and Dan Kelley, of SmithCounty, Kansas, 1873, after an extensive lawsuit in 1934 toestablish its origins. Collected in 1910 in Lomaxs anthology of

    Cowboy Songs, it was revived in 1932 and again in 1955 by GeneAutry. It is the state song of Kansas and considered the cowboy

    A Cowboy's Prayer(Written for Mother)

    Charles Badger Clark

    Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow.I love creation better as it stoodThat day You finished it so long agoAnd looked upon Your work and called itgood.

    I know that others find You in the lightThat's sifted down through tinted window panes,And yet I seem to feel You near tonightIn this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.

    I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well,That You have made my freedom so complete;

    That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell,Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street.

    Just let me live my life as I've begunAnd give me work that's open to the sky;Make me a pardner of the wind and sun,And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.

    Let me be easy on the man that's down;

    Let me be square and generous with allIm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm In town,But never let 'em say I'm mean or small!

    Make me as big and open as the plains,As honest as the hawse between my knees,

    Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains,Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze.

    Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.You know about the reasons that are hid.You understand the things that gall and fret;You know me better than my mother did.

    Just keep an eye on all that's done and saidAnd right me, sometimes, when I turn aside,And guide me on the long, dim, trail aheadThat stretches upward toward the GreatDivide.

    Badger Clark, Poet Laureate, South Dakota, 1883-1944, one of hisfirst poems and best loved. It was published in Sun and Saddle

    Leather, 1915, though written in 1893 when he cowboyed in theDakotas and Montana.

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    The Sons of the Pioneers, a 1930-50s cowboy singing group, madethese tunes well known around the world. The group was comprised ofRoy Rogers, Bob Nolan, and Tim Spencer. They were known forcomposing and creating tight vocal harmonies in numerous movie

    westerns. They continue to inspire new generations of cowboy groupslike Riders in the Sky, Sons of the San Joachim, and the Bar JWranglers.

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    ** Old Dan and I with throats burned dryLook to the sky for watercool water

    The thunder rolls and water holes are filled, once moreWith watercool, clear water

    ** by Lyndel Meikle

    Tumbling Tumbleweeds

    I'm a roaming cowboy riding all day long,Tumbleweeds around me sing their lonely song.

    Nights underneath the prairie moon,I ride along and sing this tune.

    (F) See them tumbling down,(E) Pledging their love to the ground(F) Lonely but free I'll be ( C) found (C#dim),(G7) drifting along with the tumbling (F) tumbleweeds.

    Cares of the past are behindNo where to go but I'll findJust where the trail will windDrifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

    I know when night has goneThat a new world's born at dawn.(G7)

    I'll keep rolling alongDeep in my heart is a songHere on the range I belongDrifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

    I Want To Be A CowboySweetheart

    I wanna be a cowboy's sweetheartI wanna learn to rope and rideI wanna ride through the plains and the desertOut west of The Great DivideI wanna hear the coyotes singingAs the sun sets in the westI wanna be a cowboy`s sweetheartThat's the life I love the best.

    I wanna ride old paintGoing at a gallop

    I wanna feel the wind in my faceA thousand miles away from the city lightsMoving at a cowhands paceI wanna pillow my headBeneath the open skyAs the sun sets in the westI wanna strum my guitar and yodel-le-hee-hoThat's the life I love the best

    Patsy Montana, (Ruby Blevins) wrote this in 1935 and instantly hitthe charts with the first million selling song for a cowgirl singer.

    It remains a standard for female yodelers.

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    Wallace McCrea, a salty rancher in eastern Montana who managesa 30,000 acre cow-calf ranch in Forsyth, is frequently a featuredperformer at Elko and other poetry gatherings, and is the firstCowboy Poet to be awarded the National Heritage Award from theNational Endowment for the Arts. He penned this in the 1970s andwith it, unleashed a revolution in modern cowboy poetry. It wasimmediately heralded as brilliant, at the first National CowboyPoetry gathering convened in Elko, Nevada in 1984, and remainsone of the all time favorite modern cowboy poems. It can be foundin Wallys first poetry collection, Cowboy Curmudgeon, released in1992.

    The Lion

    She waits in the deep, dense forestLurking in the shadowswhere the sun is defied,Lapping water from an ice-encrusted streamShe is stealth wrapped up in tawny hide.

    She hears more by instinct than by listening

    Her paws like radar upon the glistening shaleAnd shes keenly aware, when you are two miles awayOf your horse as he plods up the trail

    She has ample time to consider her optionsWhether scientists believe she can reason or notShe could stay where shes at, undetectedOr head back up the slope at a trot

    Yet she crosses your path when youre almost upon herLike a dancing sunbeam teasing a childLeaving one track in the trail just to inform youYouve come that close to something wild.

    Virginia Bennett, a celebrated contemporary cowboy poet works rancheswith her husband Pete, in the Mountain West. She has been featured onthe main stage at Elko for the last 8 years. This poem appears in her

    latest collection, In the Company of Horses, 2004. This poem shows therange of interests being expressed in the cowboy poetry culture today.

    Happy trails to you until we meet again.Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.

    Who cares about the clouds when we're together?Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

    Happy trails to you 'till we meet again.

    Written by Dale Evans in 1950, the successful TV star and partnerof Roy Rogers.

    This collection assembled for your pleasure byLaura Rotegard and Lyndel Meikle