Oi! Sometimes I feel stupid. But then I excuse myself. It's not at the L of C pages that I can see. Search Whole Collection (ie of American Memory) for "Old Paint" yields 1,400 hits since it doesn't seem to have to have any "exact text" option. However, individual items do & it's not in Lomax, Cowen, all sounds or sheet music. BUT, it's on my own LP!

That is, the Lomax field collection for L of C & on their LP, "Cowboy Songs, Ballads," etc. - the record songs are not on the web site at this time.

Yep, from Jess Morris with fiddle, 1942. It's a short text but Lomax thinks it traces to the oldest American set of the song. Morris claims ownership even though he learned it from his father's horse breaker, Charley Willis - an ex-slave - who had learned it hearding cattle in 1871. Morris put it to harmonica then fiddle & made it his own.

The Mustard site is a rewiew of the Rounder record. This cut seems to be the same one. L of C licenced Rounder to issue many of the Library's "more commercial" cuts - plucking cherries from the collection & existing records. The review says Goodbye Old Paint is wrenching, impassioned, quintessentially western American music, and yet it flaunts its British origins, both in the contours of its tune and in the lines 'In the middle of the ocean may grow a green tree/But I'll never prove false to the girl that loves me,' which appear as if from nowhere in Morris's paean to his pony.

The reviewer (and I would agree it's the most reasonable interpretation) gives Barry's ocean/tree lines as just the floater verse it is, plumped into the established cowboy song. Likely the song was then honed to the two (one cowboy & one music hall) versions known today.

AND this is important in being the oldest suggested root of the "Old Paint"

OK. Back to the school text (saves me from my slow monobrachial typing) and correcting it to the text in the booklet on the L of C record: - it's not bad at all. Differences are miniscule and if the school text (as is likely) was taken from the Rounder CD (or a booklet that might be enclosed), it might be a better transcription than Lomax could get with the equipment he had at the time. (Note that even Lomax's earliest recordings on portable record cutters acquired much more info than could be reproduced at the time. Lomax was much startled when they were remastered to LP ythat a great deal more could be heard, I haven't heard anything about it but I wouldn't be surprised if more again came through remastering to CD.)

I'll listen to the LP tomorrow, more to refresh on the tune than anything else, but I'll let you know if the school version is righter.



    Farewell, fair ladies, I'm a-leaving Cheyenne,
    Farewell, fair ladies, I'm a-leaving Cheyenne,
    Good-bye, my little Dony, my pony won't stand.

    (Refrain sung after every verse:)

    Old Paint, old Paint, I'm a-leaving Cheyenne.
    Good-bye, old Paint, I'm a-leaving Cheyenne.
    Old Paint's a good pony, she paces when she can.

    In the middle of the ocean, there grows a green tree,
    But I'll never prove false to the girl that loves me.

    Oh, we spread down the blanket on the green, grassy ground,
    And the horses and cattle were a-grazing all 'round.

    Oh, the last time I saw her, it was late in the fall,
    She was riding old Paint, and a-leadin' old Ball.

    Old Paint had a colt down on the Rio Grande,
    And the colt couldn't pace and they named it Cheyenne.

    For my feet's in the stirrups, my bridle's in my hand,
    Good-bye my little dony, my pony won't stand.

    Farewell, fair ladies, I'm a-leaving Cheyenne,
    Farewell, fair ladies, I'm a-leaving Cheyenne,
    Good-bye, my little Dony, my pony won't stand.