Back to the Rio Grand
August 1, 2008 10:03 PM
Part of my Old Songs project. A cowboy song about a lawman and the murderer who plans to kill him.
Another cowboy song, written in about 2003 when I was living in Omaha and performing a singing cowboy show. I remember listening to a lot of contemporary country music and finding myself quite frustrated that anything Western had been eliminated from country/western. Where there had once been a musical tradition that was parallel to -- and often intersected -- the cowboy movie genre, there were very few musical tales of rough-riding, 10-gallon-hat-wearing buckaroos and the bed men they battled. And so I went ahead and wrote one. This couldn't be much more Western, but I wanted it also to have a sort of folk song quality to it, somewhat like Dimitri Tiomkin's song "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling," from the film High Noon, which doesn't so much sound like a singing cowboy song, instead sounding like some ancient ballad.
I never sand this during my singing cowboy show, which was intended for children. The show consisted of me yodeling, twirling a pistol (it was a non-firing reproduction, and I generally brought a child out of the audience and taught him or her to do a simple twirl), and an episode of the Gene Autry serial The Phantom Empire. I also read short poems and performed what I called "Toy Theater" productions -- these were short plays acted out entirely with store bought toys. In the first one I did, I had a plump stuffed doll of a woman that was missing a leg, and, throughout the performance, I had her scream "I have the DIABETES." I found this quite funny, but the children just seemed confused and the parents responded with embarrassed silence, so I thought it might be a good idea to take care to distinguish between "what I enjoy" and "what is appropriate for children." This song, with its melancholy theme of a lawman going to face his death at the hands of a murderer, did not seem right for children.
"BACK TO THE RIO GRAND" LYRICS:
There's a town I know in old Texas
That is near the Rio Grand
There's a pine box with my name on it
And a duty I understand
O will you wait for me
O will you hold my hand
O will you bury me
When I go back to the Rio Grand
There's a star I wear upon my chest
And a six gun in my hand
There's a killer waiting there for me
Down at the Rio Grand
O will you wait for me
O will you hold my hand
O will you bury me
When I go back to the Rio Grand
There's a fight that every man must face
If he is to be a man
And this fight I know will take my life
Down at the Rio Grand
O will you wait for me
O will you hold my hand
O will you bury me
When I go back to the Rio Grand
Another cowboy song, written in about 2003 when I was living in Omaha and performing a singing cowboy show. I remember listening to a lot of contemporary country music and finding myself quite frustrated that anything Western had been eliminated from country/western. Where there had once been a musical tradition that was parallel to -- and often intersected -- the cowboy movie genre, there were very few musical tales of rough-riding, 10-gallon-hat-wearing buckaroos and the bed men they battled. And so I went ahead and wrote one. This couldn't be much more Western, but I wanted it also to have a sort of folk song quality to it, somewhat like Dimitri Tiomkin's song "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling," from the film High Noon, which doesn't so much sound like a singing cowboy song, instead sounding like some ancient ballad.
I never sand this during my singing cowboy show, which was intended for children. The show consisted of me yodeling, twirling a pistol (it was a non-firing reproduction, and I generally brought a child out of the audience and taught him or her to do a simple twirl), and an episode of the Gene Autry serial The Phantom Empire. I also read short poems and performed what I called "Toy Theater" productions -- these were short plays acted out entirely with store bought toys. In the first one I did, I had a plump stuffed doll of a woman that was missing a leg, and, throughout the performance, I had her scream "I have the DIABETES." I found this quite funny, but the children just seemed confused and the parents responded with embarrassed silence, so I thought it might be a good idea to take care to distinguish between "what I enjoy" and "what is appropriate for children." This song, with its melancholy theme of a lawman going to face his death at the hands of a murderer, did not seem right for children.
"BACK TO THE RIO GRAND" LYRICS:
There's a town I know in old Texas
That is near the Rio Grand
There's a pine box with my name on it
And a duty I understand
O will you wait for me
O will you hold my hand
O will you bury me
When I go back to the Rio Grand
There's a star I wear upon my chest
And a six gun in my hand
There's a killer waiting there for me
Down at the Rio Grand
O will you wait for me
O will you hold my hand
O will you bury me
When I go back to the Rio Grand
There's a fight that every man must face
If he is to be a man
And this fight I know will take my life
Down at the Rio Grand
O will you wait for me
O will you hold my hand
O will you bury me
When I go back to the Rio Grand
posted by Astro Zombie (1 comment total)
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I also love "I have the DIABETES."
Please not to ask which I love more. Very hard to say.
posted by eritain at 10:59 PM on August 1, 2008