Wild As The West Texas Wind

Sometimes, I think I’d like to be a cowboy.

Marty Robbins was a cowboy. He must have been, because in his song El Paso, he rides a horse, falls in love with a swarthy maiden, has a run in with a bunch of banditos, is shot repeatedly and at the end, dies in the arms of the swarthy maiden he fell in love with just a few minutes previously.

As it’s written in the present first person, I’m not sure how the dying at the end works, because if he’s dead, how can he be singing the song? And if he died, how could he have been a racing car driver for several years afterwards? Hmm.

These are just details though. If I had a Top 10 Songs Of All Time, El Paso wouldn’t be in it. And probably not a Top 15 either. But it might be in my Top 20. Narrative foibles aside, it’s a song of love, treachery, death and redemption in under five minutes, and has a chorus that soars like a vulture circling a dead body in the desert.



Marty Robbins – El Paso


Cowboys are not just about death and fighting and that though. Don Williams, who was also a cowboy, mostly sings songs about love. I’m no authority on the matter, but I’d hazard a guess that approximately all of his songs have the word ‘love’ in them. And Don isn’t interested in the bitterness of love, or the frailties of the heart. He’s just interested in loving his lady, playing his guitar, and singing about loving his lady and playing his guitar. We could all do well to learn a lesson from that.

He also has a voice that will nurse you through the nights when you’re on your own and no-one else in the world can help you, and he’ll get you through to morning, and do it all again the next night if you need him to. He’s like that, is Don.



Don Williams – Shelter Of Your Eyes


If I was a cowboy, as Marty and Don have repeatedly pointed out, I’d have to fall in love with a cowgirl. And where as a cowboy I’d be interested in death and fighting, and loving my lady, and playing my guitar, and singing about death, fighting, loving my guitar and playing my lady, my cowgirl would be altogether different.

Cowgirls are the stoic, tragic, massive haired giants, who protect their cowboys from the real world. They are beautiful and fragile, yet as strong and resilient as an ox. Whilst I’d be out a’drinkin’ and a’whoopin’ it up, my cowgirl would be tending the farm, bringing up the kids, and putting me in my hammock when I come back from a week in the saloon, looking at all the purdy dancing girls and drinking my horses weight in moonshine. She wouldn’t mind, at least she wouldn’t say so, and I’d love her forever, although I wouldn’t say so. In a perfect world, my cowgirl would be Patsy Cline, and she’d sing Crazy to me as I passed out every night.



Patsy Cline – Crazy


As a cowboy, I’d have to aspire to be legendary, with stories told about me in every town and city in the West. The stories would portray me to be everything a man can be, and none would really pin down the tragic heroic soul that I really was.

Ideally, to start with, I’d be remembered as the greatest of the outlaws, and for my run-ins with The Man, and for my support for my fellow outlaws, and for my hell-raising. After that, I’d be remembered as the man who found true love, and how my cowgirl settled me down, and reined in my wild heart. After that, I’d disappear from view for a while, content with the love of my good woman, but I wouldn’t be forgotten. After that, I’d triumphantly return to the world, and be heralded as the redeemed hero, and mostly everything I’d ever done would be remembered and rightly acknowledged, even by the people who weren’t that interested before. And then I’d die, and a world would mourn.

People might forget that at one point, a point that no-one ever really remembered, I’d take up the fight of the down-trodden, the fight of the cowboy's traditional enemy, and that shouldn’t really be forgotten, even amongst the easily remembered.



Johnny Cash – The Vanishing Race


Yep, sometimes, I think I’d like to be a cowboy.


Tiny Dancer


Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |