The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #65815   Message #1427038
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
04-Mar-05 - 09:56 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider
Subject: Lyr Add: THE COWBOY'S HAT / THE BUCKING BRONCO
No, dang it! But here are a couple collected by J. Frank Dobie.

Lyr. Add: The Cowboy's Hat A
(or The Bucking Bronco)

My love is a vaquero,
He rides on the Platte,
Has a sunburnt mustache
And a broad-brimmed hat.

He will treat you so clever
With honest respect,
That you never will regret
Meeting his broad-brimmed hat.

The last time I saw him
It was early in spring;
He was riding a bronco,
A high-headed thing.

Now all you gay ladies,
Wherever you are at,
Beware of the cowboy
With the broad-brimmed hat.

Version of Charlie Johnson, in "More Ballads and Songs of the Frontier Folk," J. Frank Dobie, 1928, pp. 170-171 with music, Publications of the Texas Folk-Lore Society, Number VII, Follow de Drinkin' Gou'd.

Lyr. Add: The Cowboy's Hat B
(or The Bucking Bronco B)

Beware, all fair maidens
Who live on the Platte,
Beware of the cowboy
Who wears the white hat.

He will toss you a kiss,
Then away he will go,
Recrossing the plains
On his bucking bronco.

He has a sweetheart in Texas,
Depend upon that,
Who worked the bright star*
For the cowboy's big hat.

She awaits his coming
All anxious to know
Just how he has dared
With his bucking bronco.

He holds off the marshall
While having his fun.
If crowded too closely
He swaps ends with his gun.

Swinging into his saddle,
Away he will go
While hanging his spurs
Into his bucking bronco.

The cowboy is generous,
His courage oft tried;
A path seeming dangerous
He surely will ride.

But he squanders his money
Wherever he may go,
While he shoots up a town
On his bucking bronco.

The bronco's his treasure
In which he takes pride.
That range has no limit
O'er which he will ride.

Most honest and truthful,
To friend or to foe,
Bold knight of the plains
On his bucking bronco.

* An embroidered star often ornamented hat, boots, gauntlets, saddle, and other accoutrements of the "Lone Star" cowboys.
Version by James Hatch, written while "trail driving in 1882;" San Antonio, TX. "More Ballads and Songs of the Frontier Folk," 1928, J. Frank Dobie, pp. 170-173, loc. cit. above.