I Saw So Much I Broke My Mind

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

I’d start out doing all the normal cowboy things, like falling in love with swarthy maidens, getting shot, dying, coming back to life again, finding my one true love who would stand by me forever, going out and getting drunk and fighting, and all that good stuff.

But after a while, I’m pretty sure that would get a bit boring. There are only so many saloons you can have a hoe down in, only so many cattle rustlers you can run out of town, only so many rodeos that can be won, only so many heart felt songs that can be sung around the camp fire. And besides, the 70s would be looming over the hill like a stampeding hoard of angry buffalo, and this time, I wouldn’t be running for cover.

First things first though – I wouldn’t be growing my hair long. There are some places a cowboy will never go, and that’s one of them. And I wouldn’t be wearing one of them big dresses that them there hippies would wear. Oh no. I ain’t no sissy.

I probably would dabble in mind altering drugs though. Strictly speaking, the cowboy’s lot is as much fire water as can be drunk before passing out and/or liver failure, and you might have to graduate on to all kinds of filthy uppers and downers and inbetweeners if you should be so lucky as to have a hit single, and have to drag your addled body across all fifty states promoting it so you can earn enough money to send back to your one true love.

So a move onto the mind altering drugs might be frowned upon in Nashville, heck, they might even try and throw you out of the Hall Of Fame. If it came to that though, I’ve got an ace up my sleeve – I’d draw the attention of the elders to that little episode Kenny Rogers and Glen Campbell had back in ’68, when it all went a bit hazy and a bit wavy and a little bit too far out - what’s good for two of the High Priests Of Country is good for me.



Kenny Rogers & The First Edition – I Just Called In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)


If they still maintained that sitting under a cactus weeping at the beauty of the fire sprites was behaviour unbecoming of a manly man of the West, then I’d straighten myself up, pull myself back together, and remind them of Mr Hazlewood’s fine body of work, before slinking back down into place at the base of my prickly friend, and waiting until the moon said I could go back home again.



Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra – Some Velvet Morning


But, as my mind started turning into swine feed, my cowgirl would drag me to the water trough, dunk my head in it a few times, and would tell me that unless I stopped taking all that crazy junk and started making something of my life, she’d up sticks and leave me, and at that point, I’d see the light, and I’d turn back onto the straight and narrow.

In fact, I’d make such a big u-turn, I’d go down to the town school, and I’d learn how to read and write. I’d probably find out that after a life of cattle management and then mind expansion, I was actually an electronic genius, what with my practical and imaginative skills, and before long, I’d be going to college, and I’d be learning how to make rudimentary synthetic sound machines that can recreate the noises of entire robotic orchestras.

Once I’d become a leading figure in the field of electronic musical interpretation, I’d go back to my roots and reproduce the classics on the machines that I’ve made, and I’d probably record a couple of albums, just like that Professor Gil Trythall did.



Gil Trythall – Nashville Moog

Gil Trythall – Wichita Lineman


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

Kenny here. Lee here. Professor Gil here.


Tiny Dancer


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