The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #7295 Message #3033120
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
15-Nov-10 - 08:54 PM
Thread Name: Origins: I Ride An Old Paint
Subject: RE: Origins: I Ride An Old Paint
"I Ride an Old Paint," as noted in posts above, seems to be a young offshoot of "Goodbye, Old Paint." The two original printings are in Sandburg (1927) and Larkin (1931); Sandburg has "throw the hoolian." Larkin has "throw the hoolihan," possibly a mistake. Sandburg says "This arrangement is from a song made known by Margaret Larkin......and by Lynn Riggs, poet and playwright.....," so the source is the same. Sandburg says "this song came to them in Santa Fe from a buckaroo who was last heart of as heading for the Border with friends in both Tucson and El Paso." I think that "buckaroo" was Riggs, and Sandburg's remark was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Riggs, who, incidentally, was raised on his family's cattle ranch.