Hmmmm. Looks like we'd better do a DTStudy on this one, too. Here's the Digital Tradition text, along with the entry from the Traditional Ballad Index.
-Joe Offer-
HOME ON THE RANGE
Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play;
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.
How often at night when the heavens are bright
With the lights from the glittering stars
Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed
If their glory exceeds that of ours.
CHORUS
Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sand
Flows leisurely down the stream;
There the graceful, white swan goes gliding along
Like a maid in a heavenly dream.
CHORUS
Where the air is so pure, the zephyrs so free,
The breezes so balmy and light,
That I would not exchange my home on the range
For all of the cities so bright.
CHORUS
Oh, I love those wild flowers in this dear land of ours,
The curlew I love to hear scream,
And I love the white rocks and the antelope flocks
That graze on the mountain tops green.
CHORUS
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This song, according to John Lomax, was first printed in 1911,
and for twenty years attracted practically no attention. It is
said to have been sung on the doorstep of Franklin D. Roosevelt's
home by a group of newspaper reporters the night he was first
elected President.
@cowboy
filename[ HOMERANG
RG
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Home on the Range
DESCRIPTION: "Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam...." The singer praises the land of the west, "Where the sky is not cloudy all day." Details vary from version to version, and besides, you all know the song anyway....
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1876 (Kirwin Chief)
KEYWORDS: cowboy home
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Randolph 193, "Home on the Range" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSUSA 62, "Home on the Range" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife-Cowboy/West 108, "Home on the Range" (3 texts, 1 tune)
PSeeger-AFB, p. 26, "Home On The Range" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 49, "Home on the Range" (1 text)
Saffel-CowboyP, pp. 178-179, "Home on the Range" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 273-274, "Home on the Range"
DT, HOMERANG
RECORDINGS:
Jules Allen, "Home On The Range" (Victor 21627, 1928)
Ken Maynard, "Home on the Range" (Columbia test recording, c. 1930; on MakeMe, WhenIWas2)
Pete Seeger, "Home on the Range" (on PeteSeeger17)
SAME TUNE:
Toys, Beautiful Toys (Pankake-PHCFSB, pp. 32-33)
Alaska: Home on the Snow (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 243)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Western Home
Arizona Home
Notes: Various candidates have been proposed as the author of this piece, e.g. Daniel Kelley and Dr. Brewster Higley (1873; for this story, see Fuld), "C.O. Swartz... and other prospectors" (1885), and probably others. Given the feel of the piece, it seems likely that there is only a single author -- but I'd have a hard time saying WHICH single author.
Various adaptions have been published over the years, e.g. "Arizona Home" by William and Mary Goodwin (1904), but none depart far from the original form. - RBW
File: R193Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index InstructionsThe Ballad Index Copyright 2002 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.