..I lay in bed and wondered if in the entire folk canon there is a line more camp than the Streets of Laredo’s immortal I can see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.
You are on thin ice, sir. Speak no ill of Marty Robbins! 
And the names of the cowboys
Will all blow away
Like the dust off the desert
On a hot windy day
I’ve tried so hard to tell you
In so many ways
That I’m scared of the heartache and scenes
With the cowboy of dreams
- Graham Nash
I’m an old cowhand from the Rio Grande
And I come to town just to hear the band
I know all the songs that the cowboys know
'Bout the Big Corral where the dogies go
I learned them all on the radio
Yipee i oh ti-ay! Yippee i oh ti-ay!
- Johnny Mercer
There is a young cowboy he lives on the range
His horse and his cattle are his only companions
He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons
Waiting for summer, his pastures to change
-James Taylor
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’,
Keep them dogies rollin’,
Man, my ass is swollen.
Rawhide!
Round em up, ride em in, get em up, get em dressed,
Comb their hair, brush their teeth.
Rawhide!
Tie me down, tell me lies, pull my hair, slap my thighs
With a big wet strap of
Rawhide!
- Billy Crystal in “City Slickers”
The cowpokes loped on past him and
He heard one call his name,
If you want to save your soul from hell
A-riding on our range,
Then, cowboy, change your ways today,
Or with us you will ride,
A-trying to catch the devil’s herd
Across these endless skies.
Yippee-yi-ya, yippee-yi-yo,
Ghost riders in the sky.
- Stan Jones
djm
I’ve felt much happier about “The Streets of Laredo” since I learned it was based on a British Naval dirge, sung to warn the jolly Jack Tars about the perils of Venereal Disease: “As I walked out in the Old streets of Plymouth”. “Wrapped up in white linen and cold as the clay” makes so much more sense now.
“I percieve by your outfit that you are a sailor”. Camper than thou, methinks.
There’s a million of 'em. This song got around.
The Streets of Laredo
The Bard of Armagh (if I’m remembering this title correctly)
The Streets of Forbes (Australia)
St James Infirmary
The Unfortunate Rake
and on and on.
The ur-text is about a soldier/cowboy/etc. dying of the clap, but that’s often bowdlerised to a a more socially acceptable death, like being shot down at a poker game.
My favourite version is Old Blind Dogs singing Pills of White Mercury.
Haiku Rd singing the song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfaoDUH3SnM
[pedantry]
BTW s1m0n it is the pox, not the clap in most of the songs.
[/pedantry]
David
I think I have heard the song you mean, the British Navy one. Part of it goes something like?
“If I had but know it, and caught it in time,
They could have give to me, salts of white mercury,
But now I’m a young sailor and death soon to find.”
–James
The interesting thing about cowboy songs is how few of them are actually written by cowboys. Speaking from the West Coast, from both and Anglo-American and Hispanic ranching background, the music and songs passed off as cowboy songs are a mixture of Tin Pan Alley and minstrel music, with a lil’ Aaron Copland thrown in for musical context.
If you want a real cowboy song, it will likely be in Spanish, with a few exceptions. I spent some time looking for authentic cowboy songs in English and most of what I found was after-the-fact b.s. The most authentic cowboy song I have ever found was “El Corrido de Kansas” which is about driving cattle from points south up to Kansas to catch the rail connection for slaughter and/or shipment. They used to do that in the spring.
The lyrics to what are supposed to be cowboy songs are fanciful if not downright inaccurate. For example, in “Git Along Lil Dogie” is a line that refers to cutting off tails. Only problem is, you dock the tails of sheep, not cattle. In “I Ride An Old Paint” the guy’s WIFE died in a poolroom fight, which is perplexing to say the least.
One of the few that seems authentic is Tyin Knots in the Devil’s Tail or whatever it’s called. At least the tune refers to actual ranching context (the cowboys come into town to drink after being up in a roundup camp).
The whole subject of Old West is skewed because the Anglo-Americans co-opted Spanish and Mexican ranching traditions as well as the true scene of Old West gunplay, which was Gold Rush era California. People get the idea that all the gunfighting was in the Southwest, etc. but it started here and was much worse here. I blame the horse operas on teevee as the worst culprit for spreading misinformation.
If any of you are interested, an author named John Boessenecker has written three excellent books on the subject, especially Gold Dust and Gunsmoke. I have read that book about 30 times, it’s so well-researched and written.
Yeah, but can you sing it?
djm
Couldn’t say, James. The words have gone but the memory of the satisfaction remains. Very likely that is the one.
Now wait a second thar pardner! Gene himself told me them was Cowboy songs and if he was a lying that means he was breaking the “Code.” Are ya telling me Gene broke the “Code?”
Can’t think of any for lyrics. That’s right up there, though. If you wanna talk tune names, in The Skye Collection there’s one called “Lala since the Queen’s Come”.
Ooookaaaaaay.
Reading through this topic has gotten me thinking about cowboy songs that I have heard and sung. I heard the cowboy, Glenn Ohrlin, sing in 70’s and 80’s, and some of his songs are about his life as a cowboy. I found this YouTube video of him singing “When I Was Single”, which is not really a cowboy tune, but he doesn’t do too badly at 80. At least he still has a good sense of humor.
YouTube Video
Here is one authenic-sounding tune that I remember Glenn singing. I’m writing this from memory, so please forgive the possible errors.
Windy Bill
Oh, Windy Bill was a Texas boy, and he could rope you bet.
He swore the steer he couldn’t tie, he hadn’t met as yet.
The boys new of an old black steer that ran down in the draw,
At the bottom of the malpais, and a sorta bad outlaw.
Now many a boy had tried the steer, but he gotta way for fair,
We bet old Bill at two to one, he couldn’t quite sit there.
He saddled up his old gray horse, his back and withers raw,
And he started after the old black steer that ran down in the draw.
With his Samstack Tree and his new McGee, and his spurs and chaps to boot,
And his ropes tied to the saddle horn he tackled that old brute,
But when he caught the old black steer, he cinches broke like straw,
And his Samstack Tree and new McGee went drifting down the draw.
Well Bill lit in a flintrock pile; his head and his hands were scratched,
We got him up and brushed him off and sorta got him patched,
He just stode there a cussin, madest man I ever saw,
While his Samstack Tree and new McGee went drifting down the draw.
There’s a moral to my story, boys, as you can plainly see.
Don’t ever tie your catchrope to your saddle tree,
But take your dally welters to the California law,
And your Samstack Tree and new McGee won’t go drifting down the draw.
There’s a lot of very interesting tension regarding the adjective that proceeds “fight” in this song; that word changes from version to version. Here’s the version sung the Almanac Singers (according to this site:
Son went to college, and his daughter went wrong.
His wife got killed in a free-for-all fight,
As Weeks points out, in neither version does the word chosen make much sense. “Pool-room” doesn’t match what’s happening in the rest of the song, and “free-for-all” is an odd phrase in itself, and adds no extra information to “fight”. It’s only purpose in the line is using up an extra ‘clip-clop’ in the metre.
I’ve always thought that the clue is in the “daughter went wrong” line that proceeds it. A son gone wrong might be dead, a criminal, or a convict, but lets face it: a daughter gone wrong is a hooker, which means that “pool-room” is standing in for something like “whorehouse”.
I could think of better things to be dreaming of…Jeez.
You would not believe the amount of times I have had to tell people that Phelim is a perfectly normal name.
One of those names that everybody knows, a simple notion..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh9AC0jCGjY
Indeed,
D. 
One of my favourite tv shows was called Cowboy Country. Typical of really good Canadian shows, they got axed just recently. But it was interesting for me to know that there are still real cowboys who make their living full-time riding, roping, etc. etc. and some of them still do write and perform their own songs, poems, tales, etc. as a sideline. There are lots of phoney shows that are staged for the public, with professional musicians and the whole show, but it was good to know (for me, at least) that the real thing still goes on, too.
djm
Best version of Streets of Laredo is the Smothers Brothers–about 15 seconds and very funny when you hear them do it–not so much when it’s just printed out:
As I walked out on the streets of Laredo.
As I walked out on Laredo one day,
I spied a young cowboy all dressed in white linen,
Dressed in white linen as cold as the clay.
“I can see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.”
“I see by your outfit you are a cowboy too.”
“We see by our outfits that we are both cowboys.
If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy too.”
Susan
here ya go! http://www.cowboypoetry.com/
this’un’s got a radio show…
Baxter Black
Sorry, dude, I didn’t mean I like that stuff, only that I was interested to learn the actual way of life is still extent.
djm
so you don’t want a horse? 