Lyr. Add: Bucking Broncho
Lomax 1910

1. My love is a rider, wild bronchos he breaks,
Though he's promised to quit it, just for my sake.
He ties up one foot, the saddle puts on,
With a swing and a jump he is mounted and gone.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908 - in the DT as "My Love
Is a Rider," unattributed)

The first time I met him, 'twas early one spring,
Riding a broncho, a high-headed thing.
He tipped me a wink as he gaily did go;
For he wished me to look at his bucking broncho.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908)

The first time I saw him 'twas late in the fall,
Swinging the girls at Tomlinson's ball.
He laughed and he talked as we danced to and fro,
Promised never to ride on another broncho.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908)

He made me some presents, among them a ring;
The return that I made him was a far better thing;
'Twas a young maiden's heart, I'd have you all know;
He's won it by riding his bucking broncho.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908)

My love has a gun, and that gun he can use,
But he's quit his gun fighting as well as his booze;
And he's sold him his saddle, his spurs and his rope,
And there's no more cow punching, and that's what i hope.
(Not in Thorp, 1908. See note with next verse)

My love has a gun that has gone to the bad,
Which makes poor old Jimmy feel pretty damn sad;
For the gun it shoots high and the gun it shoots low,
And it wobbles about like a bucking broncho.
(Not in Thorp, 1908. Modified from one of the
more bawdy versions. Compare with next to last verse of
the "Idaho version," posted above)

Now all you young maidens, where'er you reside,
Beware of the cowboy who swings the rawhide;
He'll court you and pet you and leave you and go
In the spring up the trail on his bucking broncho.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908.)

Fife and Fife, in their 1966 expansion on Thorp's "Songs of the Cowboys," reproduce the two additional verses from Lomax in footnote 20, p. 124, with the comment "Because they have become standard, despite their vulgarity, ...."