Just a historical note:

Not particularly depicted in the movies, but actual working cowboys often led a very lonely and boring lives. Steers, especially when they're behaving themselves, are not particularly stimulating companions. So cowboys had to rely on themselves and each other for entertainment.

Many cowboys were surprisingly literate, especially compared to the way they were usually depicted in the movies.   Many had memorized long passages from books, could recite poetry (not just "cowboy poetry"), and knew entire sections of Shakespeare's plays. They could recite for each other, or if out in the boonies on their own and bored to tears, they could and would recite to themselves. I believe that the Lomaxes go into this matter at some length.

And I don't think they had a whole lot of room for poetry books and volumes of Shakespeare in their saddlebags. Or song books.

They sang as well (see the Lomaxes' Cowboy Songs, which, I believe contains the first printing of many cowboy songs, including "Home on the Range"). And many of the songs they knew must have been traditional songs and ballads. Consider that the anonymous bard who came up with the song, "The Streets of Laredo" had to have been familiar with "The Dying Soldier's Lament" or "The Bad Girl's Lament" because many of the lyrics are obviously derivative. Same with a lot of cowboy songs.

And I believe the same holds true for seamen as well. Those who are into nautical lore can correct me if I'm wrong about that.

While riding the bus, as an alternative to simply people-watching or staring vacantly out the window at the same landscape you've seen pass by every morning for the past twenty-eight years--or sitting in a doctor's waiting room with nothing to do but leaf absently through the latest "People's Magazine" or a fourteen-year-old copy of "National Geographic," one can gaze off thoughtfully into space while singing any number of songs and ballads silently in one's head.

Good practice, by the way. Keeps the songs fresh in your--ahem--memory.

Just a few thoughts.

Don Firth