5 iconic songs of the Wild West
The image of the cowboy, created largely thanks to westerns, resembles a knight-the same wanderer on a horse with a revolver instead of a sword, fighting in duels and hunting for a woman's heart. Knights did not compose ballads, for this purpose near them there were bards who precisely noticed and sang their way of life. Cowboys such assistants are not enough, because they themselves were sometimes not averse to come up with a few sentimental verses about his lonely and unhappy life. This kind of poetry was called cowboy, but for the first time it came from professional writers who accompanied cowboys on the road.
I chose only a few poems, both professional and folk, written during the Wild West and extant in the form of songs.
"Bill Venero"
The song "Bill Venero" is a unique case, because it is the result of author's and public creativity. It was first published in 1881 in the newspaper Youth's Companion. It was called "The Ride of Paul Venarez" and the author was made by Eben E. Rexford — prolific American writer, largely famous for the books about gardening. The text of the poem was too long and complicated, but the story is so good for its simplicity that later the folk poets who loved it changed the lines and turned out a completely different work, which preserved, however, the basic idea. We present the translated text of one of the many versions of the song.
"Out Where the West Begins»
Unlike the previous one, "Out Where the West Begins" has only one and only author — Arthur Chapman — a reporter and columnist who worked in many American Newspapers at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. Despite the fact that his poem is not directly related to the cowboys, it embodies the spirit of the Wild West.
On the cover of Chapman's "Mystery Ranch", released in 1921, the poem was mentioned:
"Today it is perhaps the most famous lines in America. They hang on the wall of the office of the Ministry of internal Affairs, they are quoted in Congress and used in election campaigns by governors."
Lyrics by Out Where the West Begins
"Drift Along Lonely Cowboy"
William Fletcher, born in 1892 in San Francisco, lived his life brightly. For 62 years, he managed to visit the musician, the poet, the publisher, the promoter of Rodeo and the cowboy. He missed the free youth and openly admitted it in one of the letters to a friend:
"Damn it, I was born and raised in this very West. The first thing I remember was the ranch and the cows. I spent the best years becoming a cowboy. I knew every brook from Sierra Nevada to Utah, and I still fondly remember the days and nights I spent in the saddle getting only thirty bucks a month. But it was the happiest time of my life."
Lyrics by Drift Along Lonely Cowboy
"Railroad Corral"
Usually this song is considered folk, because it won great fame among the cowboys, but in reality it was written by the American poet John Mills Hanson, who in 1904 sent it to Leslie's Monthly Magazine with a note that during the composition he kept in mind the motif of the ballad Walter Scott "Bonnie Dundee". However, the editors of his afterword was not published, and the cowboys themselves began to put the song in different tunes.
"Make Me A Cowboy Again For A Day"
Little is known about where this song came from. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to say exactly who and when it was composed. One thing is certain — she is quite old and loved by cowboys-that is enough to include her in the list. Performs it Don Edwards and that is what he says about it:
"This longtime song was loved by my friend dick Farnsworth, he laid it on the tune of "One Morning in May". If people stop singing songs like this, eventually they will be gone forever. I sing it a little better than a crow, but much worse than a canary bird.
Lyrics by Make Me A Cowboy Again For A Day
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