The Tenderfoot
from Songs of the Cowboys, N. Howard "Jack" Thorp (ed.), 1908.
credited to Yank Hitson, Denver, Colorado, 1889.

1. I thought one spring just for fun
I'd see how cow-punching was done
So before the roundup was begun
I tackled the cattle king.

2. Said he "my boss is down in town
He's at the Palace, his name is Brown;
I think to the ranch he'll take you down."
"That's what I want," says I.

3. We started to the ranch next day
Brown augured me most all the way
Told me cow-punching was just child's play
It was no work at all.

4. For all you have to do is ride
Its only drifting with the tide
Oh how that old cow puncher lied
He surely had his gall.

[Per Fife and Fife, verse 9 should go here.]

5. Put me in charge of the Caballada
And told me not to work too hard
For all I had to do was ride
And keep the horses near.

6. I had one hundred and sixty head
Sometimes I wished that I were dead
Brown's head would often get bright red
If any got away.

7. Straight to the bushes they would take
As if they were running for a stake
I've often wished their necks they'd break
But they would never fall.

8 Sometimes I couldn't head them all
At other times my horse would fall
And I'd roll on like a cannon ball
Till earth got in my way.

9. He saddled me up an old gray hack
With three set-fasts upon his back
Then padded him up with gunny sacks
And used my bedding all.

10. When I got on he gave a bound
Sprung in the air and turned around
Just then my head hit on the ground
It was an awful fall.

11. He picked me up and carried me in
He bathed my head and commenced to grin
Says that's the way they all begin
You're doing very well.

12. To-morrow morning if you don't croak
I'll give you another horse that's broke
You'll not need a saddle or even a rope
"No, I'll quit right here," says I.

[Thorp supplied the following verses in the 1921 edition.]

13. I've travelled up and I've travelled down,
I've travelled this country round and round,
I've lived in city and I've lived in town,
But I've got this much to say.

14. Before you try cow-punching, kiss your wife,
Take a heavy insurance on your life,
Then cut your throat with a barlow knife,--
For it's easier done that way.


Notes:
5.1 caballada = string of saddle horses used on trail or roundup
9.2 set-fasts = saddle sores
11.2 Other versions typically have the boss rolling the puncher down with a pin of some sort (e.g. picket pin or rolling pin.)

I've only changed the original text by adding bylines, verse numbers and bracketed notes.

Other titles for this song: "The Tenderfoot Cowboy", "A Tenderfoot's Experience", "The City Cowboy", "The Greenhorn [Cowboy]", "The Greenhorn's Experience", "The [D2] Horse Wrangler".

["The Zebra Dun" is also sometimes titled "The Tenderfoot", but is a different song. Thorp collected it under the title "The Educated Feller" (SotC, 1908).]

Authorship of "The Tenderfoot" is disputed. In the 1921 edition of SotC, Thorp credits Yank Hitson. [No credits were furnished for any songs in the first edition, not even for poems/songs Thorp wrote himself.] It was submitted to John Lomax by A.S. Jackson of Dickens, Texas, who claimed to have written it with another "puncher" in the summer of 1879 on a trip from Texas to Colorado. R.D. Mack also claimed to have written it.

In a letter dated April 4, 1932, O'Malley claimed to have written it in 1893 (he titled it "The D2 Horse Wrangler"), but J. Frank Dobie contested some of O'Malley's other claims, and asserted that "The Horse Wrangler" was certainly older than that.


The DT MIDI is similar to the tune in Carl Sandburg's The American Songbag:

ABC
X:1
T:"The Tenderfoot"
C:From _The American Songbag_ (p. 274), ed. Carl Sandburg, 1927

Z:As sung by Norman Byrne of the University of Oregon,
Z:as he learned it in Alberta Canada.
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:F
C | F2 G A2 B | c2 d c2 c | d2 d A2 A | c2 c F2 c|
F2 G A2 B | c2 d c2 A | c c c d2 A | c3 z2 c |
d2 d B2 B | c2 c A2 A | B B B G G G | A2 A F2 C |
F2 G A2 B | c2 d c2 F | c2 B A2 G |1 F3-F2 :|2 F6 ||

The Fife's supplied these chords, derived from Hazel Felman's arrangement in the Songbag:
| F Dm | F Am | Bb Dm | Am F |
" Dm | F Am | C+ Dm | C7 |
Bb | Am | Bbm | Gbm |
F | " Dm | F | C C7 | F |
(A bit busy and arty for authentic cowboy harmony!)

The most widely known tune, though, is probably the one from Jules Verne Allen's Cowboy Lore. And more typical: only eight bars (one verse per pass, instead of two) and 2-1/2 chords (C and G(7)).