Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??

Subject: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 04:01 AM

In one of the Digitrad version of "The Streets of Laredo", the fifth stanza reads:

"My friends and relations, they live in the Nation,
They know not where their boy has gone,
He first came to Texas and hired to a ranchman
Oh, I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

(Line three, incidentally, should begin, "I first came to Texas ...")

(clicky)

I'd always assumed that this version of Laredo was set in Texas, before 1845 when Texas became part of the United States, and that pre-1845, Texans referred to the then US as The Nation.

But I think I may have got this horrendously wrong.

Anyone help?

Particularly with two specific questions:

How did Texans refer to the US before 1845?

Where does the phrase "live in the Nation" come from?

Robin

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Hrothgar
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 04:39 AM

As in "Indian Nation," being the Indian reservations up towards Oklahoma and the Panhandle??

Don't take this as a expert opinion - I might have read too many Westerns.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 04:45 AM

"My friends and relations, they live in the Nation,
They know not where their boy has gone,
He first came to Texas and hired to a ranchman
Oh, I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

Clearly "The Nation" does not refer to Texas, as 'the relations' live there, so presumably 'the boy' lived there before he 'first came to Texas'. You only come from A to B, not from A to A

Nigel

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 05:27 AM

Hrothgar:

Hadn't thought of the Indian Nation. Neat, but I don't think it fits the context.

***

Nigel:

"
Clearly "The Nation" does not refer to Texas, as 'the relations' live there, so presumably 'the boy' lived there before he 'first came to Texas'. You only come from A to B, not from A to A
"

Exactly -- so (assuming this isn't over-interpreting) the dying cowboy was born in the (then) 27 States, moved to Laredo in Texas to work for a ranchman, and got shot outside Tom Sherman's bar-room.

Dying in a small Texas town, he +seems+ to refer to the 27 States, that he'd earlier left, as "the Nation".

But I've been challenged on this by two Texans, neither of whom had ever come across this.

Currently, it's driving me out of my skull, I have to say.

Thanks, both.

Robin

*** Actually, bugger me rigid, but now I come to think of it, that actually +is+ a possibility, that the Dying Cowboy is a Native American. Would make sense ...

But one problem is that in the entire sweep of the Rake tradition, from the Buck/soldier/sailor/bad girl in England to the cowboys, linesmen, skiers, teachers, and dockers, there doesn't seem to be a Native American featured. The closest I can think of (among the parodies), is Johnny Wu, who got turned-down for Phi Beta Kapa.

A reading that would make the cowboy a Native American would fit the locution of "live in the Nation" perfectly, and add something new to the strand.

Except there's absolutely +nothing+ else in the version to suggest this -- mostly, it's standard Rake-to-Laredo stuff.

Going to have to think on this ...

Thanks again, Hrothgar.

R2

(In a kind of grisly addendum, unless someome comes up with with a better gloss on "the Nation", I'm going to go with this version having the cowboy as a Native American. If I ever get round to publishing it, I'll footnote Hrothagar.

Honest.

[g]

CP30

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 05:44 AM

Robin: nothing in it to say he wasn't a Native American; the only other possible positive pointers:
Before I turned, the spirit had left him
And gone to its Giver Gone to it's giver? not Christian terminology!
And give a wild whoop as you carry me along,

Take me to the green valley and lay the sod o'er me no coffin, either a pauper's burial, or a return to the land. In a later verse it mentions the graveyard rather than the 'green valley', but still no coffin.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 06:51 AM

Nigel:

Most of what you point to can be paralleled in other versions of Laredo.

"Give a wild whoop as you carry along" is prolly one of the more inept attempts to re-write (England to the States):

    Play the dead march as you carry me on
   
I'd absolutely love for the cowboy in this version to be Amerindian. As you say, there's nothing in the text that rules it out, but equally, pace what you point to, there's nothing that rules it in.

And we seem to be drifting off the Nation.

What's being kicked-up is magic, but my neck's still on the line over that term.

:-(

Robin

(Actually, "gone to its Giver" might be a crux -- I can't find this in any other version I've got on disk, but if I were betting -- betting being easier than doing serious research [g] -- I'd type this as a reflex of 19thC American Transcendentalism (Emerson and Thoreau)rather than Amerindian.

... thinking about it, the occurrence of "gone to its Giver" -- Hiawatha? -- might be an index of just +when+ this particlar re-write emerged -- post-Longfellow?

So the +reference+ in the text has to be pre-1845, but it would have been written down/put together, about fifty years later.

Make any sense?

R2

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: JedMarum
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 09:05 AM

No one in Texas or the US would have considered using the Indian Nation in those days.

I suspect the word use is based upon, 1)bastardization of the phrase an original writer of the verse may have used or 2) bad rhyming skill on the part of the original writer of the verse, and a reference to the "Old Country" wherever that may have been for him.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,vrdpkr
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 09:54 AM

I've always assumed it to be the nation as in Woody Guthrie;

Way don yonder in the Indian Nation
Ride my pony on the Reservation

"No one in Texas or the US would have considered using the Indian Nation in those days."

Why?

Texas was a different place before the swarm of Southern Whites changed the ethnic balance.
Remember the "Yellow Rose?" She was the "sweetest Rose OF COLOR Texas ever knew."

It doesn't mean he was Amerindian. Lots of reasons to end up in the Nations at the time. Some good, some bad. I'm especially proud of an ancestor of mine who, after taking part in the military escort to take the Choctaw from Mississippi to Oklahoma, resigned his commision, married a Choctaw girl and settled down.

Nice thread.

Harpy Trails

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 11:19 AM

1. Woody was from Claremore, Oklahoma, where they're well aware of their native heritage. At a draft board interview, Woody was asked if any one in his family had ever tried to overthrow the government by force. Dead silence when he said yes. Until he added, Sitting Bull.

2. The probable 'Yellow Rose of Texas' was from Louisiana.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Mark Clark
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 11:38 AM

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language includes these definitions for nation:

A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans.
The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.

I've always assumed the use of nation in the song refers to Native American lands; this seems to have been the way the word nation was used by Native Americans themselves.

I know this isn't a scholarly reply but I hope the Native American reference holds up.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Laredo/Tejas/La Rasa
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 12:06 PM

I agree with Jed, who lives way north of me, but I must say this ballad would have been hardly known in it's own City for some time, the vast majority of the residents nonenglish speakers... Laredo, un ciudad en Tejas yahhhhhh...

So while that ?might? have been a reason to say it by some later writer, at the time it is supposed to refer, makes nearly no sense at all.

Also - despite - the pilfering nature of many Aglophile collectors, both melody and lyric is many times ascribed to an Irish author, which is not at all suprising when you know that the latest white settlers in South Texas (1750s-1850s) were the persecuted Irish Catholics who earlier gladly accepted from the Mexican Government refuge from the British landthieves who had stolen their Nation, enslaved the people, and outlawed - under a death penatly - their Catholic religion.

The tune, like many softer strains is a Gaelic folk theme. See The Irish Harp - Google several sites.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 12:54 PM

sorefingers:

"
The tune, like many softer strains is a Gaelic folk theme. See The Irish Harp - Google several sites.
"

Not to go too much into the background (as it all starts in Dublin in the 1790s), there's a tune/words split.

If you +really+ want tae get yir heid done in, try a google on "A Hand[s]full of Laurel". Or "The Bard of Armagh".

Robin

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Songster Bob
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:01 PM

"My friends and relations, they live in the Nation,
They know not where their boy has gone,
I first came to Texas and hired to a ranchman
Oh, I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

Well, the internal rhyme in the first line sound more Irish than the non-rhyme in the third, so I'd say it may have been poetic license and a nebulous meaning. I'd lean towards "back east" instead of the Indian Nation, myself. For one thing, the two places aren't far enough apart for the family to be so out-of-touch (yes, I know that 19th-Century travel was very slow, so they wouldn't be in constant touch, but it seems to me that the states across the Mississippi were much farther "away" than the Indian Territories, which were athwart the cattle trails anyway).

Anyone know the older songs in the cycle? Do any of them have similar stanzas? Might be the source of this verse.

Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: JedMarum
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:01 PM

I simply mean that "Indian Nation" is not a mid-nineteenth century term. It is much more modern.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:21 PM

Young Indians from the Indian "Nation" sought work throughout the cattle country; some were on drives that brought cattle to the reservations set up by the government in the Dakotas, e. g., Cheyenne Agency, S. Dak., as well as to ranches in the northwestern US and western Canada.
With education from Indian-sponsored schools at Talaquah and elsewhere in the nation, some of the young Indians were looking for opportunities elsewhere.
It wasn't long before the Nation was destroyed by the great land grab.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:42 PM

Should also add that there were quite a few whites in the Nation before its destruction, along with the mixed Indian-white families, some there as traders quite early (Chouteau family for one).
The song, however, suggests late 19th century and later.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 02:32 PM

"
Anyone know the older songs in the cycle? Do any of them have similar stanzas? Might be the source of this verse.

Bob Clayton
"

Try here -- (clicky).

... and chase the links ...

Begins in Ireland in the 1790s, and is pretty well documented.

Though not all of the documentation is accurate, and there are bits missing from all the Forum threads.

... but it's a start.

Robin

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 04:38 PM

Quote
"Not to go too much into the background (as it all starts in Dublin in the 1790s), there's a tune/words split. "
Endquote
I think you are at the end of street not the start with that date, but
please do elaborate.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 05:48 PM

Most of the details on this song cluster has been gone over in other threads.
There is no mention of a "nation" or similar in any of the British Isles antecedents.
The first American version, with the general theme of "Streets of Laredo," was "Tom Sherman's Barroom." No mention of a "nation" there. Stewie posted a very late version of this song, which was apparently written by F. H. Maynard, about 1876, based on a song popular with cowboys, called "The Dying Girl's Lament." See Guy Logsdon, 1989, "The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing," p. 289ff., Univ. Illinois Press.
No early version of the song has been posted here. The first verse (Austin E. and Alta S. Fife) is:

As I passed by Tom Sherman's barroom,
Tom Sherman's Barroom quite early one morn,
I spied a young cowboy all dressed in his buckskins,
All dressed in his buckskins and fit for the grave.

No mention of a "nation." There is a comprehensive analysis, including references to field recordings and manuscripts, and bibliography, in the Fife's notes to "Songs of the Cowboys," N. Howard (Jack) Thorp, 1966, pp. 148-190.
In a small booklet published at Estancia, NM, in 1908, N. Howard Thorp published his version. No mention of a "nation." The booklet is reproduced in the book referenced above ("Songs of the Cowboys," News, Print Shop). His version has not yet been posted here.
Another 1908 version (Sharlott Hall) appeared in Arizona (no "Nation").

The verse quoted by Robin, with "Nation," at the top of this thread first appeared in John A. Lomax, 1910, Cowboy Songs, p. 74-76. (The "He" in the third line appears there. The "He" is repeated in the enlarged 1938 ed.). The "nation" first appears in this text.
Just where Lomax got this text is uncertain. Many years later, he claimed to have obtained the song in Texas. In 1960 he went back to a brief late version of Tom Sherman's Barroom and used the title "The Dying Cowboy," "Folksongs of North America," 1960. No mention of the "Nation." Along with it, he published an English version of "The Sailor Cut Down in His Prime" (pp. 184-186).
Noted in a previous thread (3918) is use of the song by Owen Wister in his novel, "Lin McLean," 1898. No mention of a nation, but the song is incomplete.

"Friends" and "relations" are mentioned in the version printed in 1908 by Thorp.

"Farewell my friends, farewell my relations
My earthly career has cost me sore"
The cow-boy ceased talking, they knew he was dying
His trials on earth, forever were o'er.

Much information in thread 3918: white linen

Tom Sherman, thread 20413: Tom Sherman

Several threads on British Isles antecedents.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 06:14 PM

The "friends and relations" verse may have been borrowed from a song of that name, "My Friends and Relations."
See Dana Coolidge, "Texas Cowboys," (Dutton, 1937), a book about the period before WW1. He says he collected it from a cowboy known as Outlaw Tom. The tune generally used is "My Home in Montana," but that was applied to it by later singers. The first verse;

My friends and relations, they live in the Nations,
They know not where their cowboy has gone.
Besides their vexation and great trouble-ation
Someday they'll be sorry for what they have done.

The book was about Texans working for the Chiricahua Cattle Co. in Arizona ("the Cherrycows").
Powder River Jack Lee sang the song in the 1940s.

See Glenn Ohrlin, 1973, "The Hell-Bound Train, A Cowboy Songbook, pp. 6-7, Univ. Illinois Press.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 06:45 PM

Guest your a gem in disguise and if ever there was a case for Max's infinite wisdom, then you are it!

Interesting aside, Escamillo I think is the gentleman's name, an Argentine who is a member may be able to further educate us about it, there is I believe a version in Spanish not popular en el Norte, but nontheless the same ould thang, might be worth looking soley in Spanish language resources for more information, but the tune certainly did ship with members of my immediate family settling in Chile/Agentina 1790-1850s. The funny thing about that migration, these folks thought ill of the welcome afforded Catholic Irish in some parts and both had the knowledge and the MONEY to do something about it, hence departing the good ole Union, stranger still some of them fought in the revolutionary war(I have the records) but still departed south as soon as the dust settled. Most are still Catholics and most are now integrated into the the populations of nearly every country in the Continent.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 07:45 PM

Much of our "cowboy culture" is rooted in the Vaquero traditions and culture of Latin America- and of the American west as well.
Because of the connections of the song with a group from the British Isles, I have not really looked for the Irish-Latin connection, but it could have happened that way. I had one g-g-grandad from Ireland who settled in New Mexico and who worked the cattle drives to Montana, often working with Spanish-speaking cowboys in part, but this was in the Civil War period and shortly thereafter. Spanish-speaking traders from Santa Fe worked the routes of the Santa Fe Trail from Missouri and the Chihuahua Trail to Mexico along with the Anglos.

Apart from this thread, but of possible interest to you, if you haven't seen it before, Sorefingers, is this site devoted to the vaqueros of the American-Mexican southwest: Cowboys-Vaqueros

If you have any songs, or information about possible Spanish versions, I would be glad to hear of them.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 09:49 AM

sorefingers:

"
Quote
"Not to go too much into the background (as it all starts in Dublin in the 1790s), there's a tune/words split. "
Endquote
I think you are at the end of street not the start with that date, but
please do elaborate.
"

,,, I'm not sure how much of this is lodged on Mudcat, but here's how it begins:

Get six of my comrades to carry my coffin,
Six girls of the city to bear me on,
And each of them carry a bunch of red roses,
So they don't smell me as they walk along.

And muffle your drums, and play your fifes lowly,
Play the dead march as you carry me on,
And fire your bright muskets all over my coffin,
Saying: 'There goes an unfortunate rake to his doom!"

...

My jewel, my joy, don't trouble me with the drum,
    Sound the dead march as my corpse goes along;
And over my dead body throw handfuls of laurel,
    And let them all know that I'm going to my rest.

... both sets can be tracked back to Ireland in the 1790s.

The first full text is "The Buck's Elegy" (circa 1850), beginning:

As I was walking down Covent Garden,
        Listen awhile, and the truth I'll relate,
Who should I meet but my dearest comrade,
        Wrapt up in flannel, so hard was his fate.

... none of this has sod-all to do with with the use of the term "Nation" in a specific stanza of a version of Laredo coming out of the USA in prolly 1890, and describing a situation which is VERY specifically set outside Tom Sherman's bar-room in the town of Laredo in Texas sometime previous to 1845.

But hey, what do I know?

Robin

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 10:45 AM

Better give up, Robin. You would die of thirst if you looked for Tom Sherman's Barroom in Laredo. It was in Dodge City, Kansas.
Date 1876 when Maynard wrote the song- see Dr. James F. Hoy, "F. H. Maynard, Author of the Cowboy's Lament," Mid-America Folklore, vol. 21#2, Fall, 1993, pp. 61-68. Maynard based the song on "The Dying Girl's Lament," which is the form in which the British Isles song was picked up by the cowboys.
The song got moved to Laredo- and other places- later.

Fort Dodge was built in 1865 and the town got started about the same time. Some 1200 people in 1876. The cattle drives ended 1885-1890.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Dead Horse
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 05:22 PM

I may be way off here, and hope I am, but wasn't the KKK referred to as "The Nation"?
Brings the whole idea of him being draped in white linen into a different light. Mebbe he wore a pointy hat, too. (grin)

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 07:44 PM

Dead Horse, the KKK "nation" has been brought up before. No connection to the lyrics in either "My Friends and Relations" or "The Cowboy's Lament" seems possible.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Hrothgar
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 03:52 AM

Couple of people have beaten me to the point, but

(a) I'm sure there were Cuaucasians/whites/whatever living in the Indian Nation. I think some of them had good reasons to be that far away from regulated society. They might have been just the people to be related to a cowboy who came to a sticky end.

(b) It was called the Indian Nation before the great Oklahoma land rush (1889?). How long before that, I don't know.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 04:37 PM

From: GUEST,Q - PM

"
Better give up, Robin. You would die of thirst if you looked for Tom Sherman's Barroom in Laredo. It was in Dodge City, Kansas.
"

Meep -- call me the Runner and mark me down as roadkill.

"
Date 1876 when Maynard wrote the song- see Dr. James F. Hoy, "F. H. Maynard, Author of the Cowboy's Lament," Mid-America Folklore, vol. 21#2, Fall, 1993, pp. 61-68. Maynard based the song on "The Dying Girl's Lament," which is the form in which the British Isles song was picked up by the cowboys.
The song got moved to Laredo- and other places- later.
"

I have to say that this strikes me as absolute total raving bullshit. But thanks anyway, as I hadn't come on the Maynard version before.

Not to go into details but the Maynard version isn't simply pastiche, it's beyond that. But I have to say that lifting a bit from Blind Willie McTell's "Dying Crap Shooter's Blues" shows chutspa beyond belief.

Actually, honest, I really owe you for this -- I suppose it's just possible that a version of Laredo written or sung in the late 19thC +could+ incorporate lines from the blues tradition, and derive from the girly version of the Rake before it crossed the Pond. But I beg to doubt this.

Did someone (James F. Hoy) actually get this rubbish past the external reader of a serious journal?

Christ!!!

Robin

[Oh god, I still simply can't believe this, it's so lovely. Masato, where are you now when I need you to share the joke?

R2.]

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 06:25 PM

By responding to the last post, I am acting stupidly, but the nonsense has to be remarked and Dr. Hoy's scholarship defended.
Who is Dr. Hoy?
Dr. Hoy is a reviewer and manuscript consultant for several scholarly presses, including the universities of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Hawaii, and several journals.

He is on the Board of Trustees, Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, and the Board of Directors, Kansas State Historical Society. He is a proposal referee for the US Governments NEH humanities programs. He has lectured widely, at universities in England, United States and Australia.

His published research extends from a dissertation on Medieval drama in York, to a history of rodeo.
His published books are mostly are on western history, and his two volumes (with Tom Isern) on "Plains Folk," discussing the peoples and traditions of the area from Texas to the Canadian Prairies, are classics.

You also seem to be ignorant about F. H. Maynard, a well-known cattleman and western entrepreneur, who retired to Denver and lived in the most prestigious club in that City. His "Tom Sherman's..." was published there in a book of songs, now very rare. I doubt that you have seen his text! I have yet to see the original. It certainly hasn't appeared in Mudcat, which has a late version.

Maynard's story will appear in detail in the forthcoming book by Hoy (Univ. Oklahoma Press), "The Winning of the Wild, the Adventures in Prose and Poetry, of F. H. Maynard, An Old Time Cowboy."

Your remark that Maynard, in the 1870s, could lift somthing from Willie McTell is beyond belief! Moreover, all of the poems and songs, from the Unfortunate Rake to The Cowboy's Lament, as we know them, like many folk clusters, are re-writes and pastiches. You obviously know little of the American songs. The Bad Girl's Lament, etc., are well known in North America, and have been collected from Canada to Texas. And the tune? Even songs of the false lovers cluster have used it (English "False Young Man"= Canadian "As I Walked Forth in the Pride of the Season," etc.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 07:12 PM

My theory would be, the tune was played everywhere and lyrics got added according to local lore. Just a theory, but it allows some strain to be later collected and sung by the deft Willie - no slouch at recognizing a good tune - but also ungarred by Mr Maynard.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 08:56 PM

No problem -- pistols for two, coffee for one ...

"
By responding to the last post, I am acting stupidly, but the nonsense has to be remarked and Dr. Hoy's scholarship defended.
Who is Dr. Hoy?
Dr. Hoy is a reviewer and manuscript consultant for several scholarly presses, including the universities of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Hawaii, and several journals.
"

Uh ...

Look, before we swap alphabet soup as to who's called what when ...

(And incidentally, as I happen to carry a York DPhil, don't bloody patronise me.)

Now, more seriously, the Frances Henry "Frank" Maynard version has the interesting line:

   Let sixteen gamblers come handle my coffin

...like wow, OK, this might +not+ be a straight lift from Blind Willie McTell but it sure as hell comes out of the blues line of Laredo.

Ah -- god, I really love this Maynard version. As an idiot composite pastiche, how did it ever manage to pass?

And did someone actually manage to float an academic article on the back of this?

Robin

(Oh god, I could -- as I'm sure lots of Caters could as easily -- track every stupid plagiarised line to its source.

On the other hand, it's so +stunningly+ inept, it deserves a footnote in history -- somewhere between Johnny Wu and Emmy Lou's +Red Dirt Girl+

R2)

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 10:37 PM

"
Your remark that Maynard, in the 1870s, could lift somthing from Willie McTell is beyond belief!
"

Give me proof that the Maynard text was written in the 1870s rather than, say, 1940, when a lift from Blind Willie would make perfect sense.

[Sniping aside, I could walk you through every bloody LINE of that lunatic stiched-together text. It's not just pastiche, it's post-fifties pastiche.]

[howl!!!]

Robin

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 11:05 PM

Q- also Ph. D- which don't make no nevermind. Hmmm, Hoy did his dissertation work in York- did you two ever meet at dawn with seconds at the ready? No?

To repeat:
F. H. Maynard- born 1853
Wrote his "Tom Sherman's Barroom" version in the 1870s. Soon to be published in the book by Hoy.

DEFINITELY NOT the version inserted in the brief biography of Maynard in the Cowboy Poetry website, which is from Lomax in the 1910 edition of "Cowboy Songs." Nothing to do with Maynard's lyrics. Admittedly misleading placement of the lyrics at the website, but this would be known to anyone interested in Cowboy songs.

Other versions- of "Cowboy's Lament."
NONE older than the fragment in Owen Wister, "Lin MacLean," 1898.

"The Cow Boys Lament," N. Howard Thorp, published 1908.
The scene of action is Galveston, Texas, a Gulf port city, not on the Border. Our hero gets killed by a "greaser" in a fight over the "Belle of the village."

Sharlott Hall, (Arizona) 1908. Not certain of her full original text. First line- "As I started out to Latern in Barin as I rode out so early one day,".

The Cowboy's Lament," 1910, John A. Lomax, "Cowboy Songs."
Here we find an olla podrida, put together without attribution in the illimitable Lomax fashion. Here appear the 16 gamblers, the friends and relations who live in the Nations (borrowed from another song entirely), the jolly whatever from the English "The Young Girl Cut Down..." and etc. who made the trip to North America.
Even "The Flash Lad" was satisfied with six young women to bear up his pall and only six highwaymen (in Lomax the six maidens were pretty- young not enough, and cowboys acted for the six highwaymen). Sixteen gamblers? Oh, Well.

Much later- Here come McTell and the blues boys!

Were the British Isles older versions of the song brought to America by English remittance men?

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 12:38 AM

"
Q- also Ph. D- which don't make no nevermind. Hmmm, Hoy did his dissertation work in York- did you two ever meet at dawn with seconds at the ready? No?
"

Way cool! I was there 69-72, mostly English, though I did hang around the music department and oddly enough had my first snap at York DPhil writing an opera libretto.

I'd guess Hoy would be after my time then, nah? So I wouldn't have a chance to swing a cutlass at him, seconds or not.

Robin.

(In the faint possibilty that anyone might be interested, _The Rose-Garden_, music by Anne Boyd.

Ouch!! PLEASE let's not go into how I ended up suing Faber (Music) over the copyright of the libretto -- a Long Sad Tale.

R2.)

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Stewie
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 01:18 AM

Guest Q,

Austin and Fife reference their B text, beginning 'As I was passing Tom Sherwin's bar room', as coming from 'three volumes extracted from the manuscript collections of John A. Lomax in the archives of the Texas Historical Society, Austin'. No date is given. Do you know when this was collected? There's no one carrying a coffin and no fifes or drums. It is mainly expressions of sorrow to family - father, mother, brother, sister - and lover: 'I got in a battle while playing stud poker/And I don't want my people to share in my shame'.

I am puzzled that the first stanza of the B text [Austin & Fife 'Cowboy and Western Songs', #119 'Streets of Laredo', p 322] is different from what you quote as printed in Austin and Fife. It has 'Sherwin' rather than 'Sherman':

As I was passing by Tom Sherwin's bar room -
Tom Sherwin's bar room so early one day -
Who should I see but a handsome young cowboy
Stretched out on a blanket and all pale and gray

Did you quote from a different Austin & Fife book? The A text in the volume I have is the Thorp piece with the action in Galveston.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 12:57 PM

I think this is the Lomax MS text you quote, Stewie. The book is "Songs of the Cowboys," N. Howard 'Jack Thorp, Variants, Commentary, Notes and Lexicon by Austin E. and Alta S. Fife, 1966.

XIII-F. "The Cowboy's Lament"
Lomax d.5656, from Slim Critchlow (JL. 320).
On p. 165-166, 10 verses, no date.
As I was walking by Tom Sherwin's bar room
Tom Sherwin's bar room so early one day- etc.
(No "battle" here- Please gather up my last hand of poker
The one that I dropped when I got my death wound, etc. No stanza with that word in the Fifes' long summary, pp. 148-190.)

Two more MS excerpts from Lomax are the music for two versions of "Tom Sherman's Barroom." No dates.
XIII-T "Streets of Laredo" LC 658B2, sung by L. Henson, Texas, recorded by Lomax (FAC I 292). "As I was riding down past Tom Sheridan's bar-room, One morning so early in May, I spied," etc. p. 180-181.

XIII-U. "Streets of Laredo" LC 936B2, Texas, 1937, recorded by Lomax (FAC I 293). "As I passed by Ben Sherman's bar-room, Ben Sherman's bar-room quite early one morn, I spied " etc. p. 181.

In Cowboy Songs, 1910, Lomax printed the "Cowboy's Lament" beginning "As I walked out in Laredo one day," etc., 15 verses. No comments or date.
In "Cowboy Songs and Frontier Ballads," 1938, p. 417-422, the Lomax's printed 12 verses of "As I walked out in Laredo" with 2 more in italics, with several variant verses in footnotes. Listed as the beginning stanza in one version (no attribution) is:
As I passed by Tom Sherman's barroom
Tom Sherman's barroom quite early one morn,
I spied a young cowboy all dressed in his buckskins, All dressed in his buckskins and fit for the grave.

He gives the first verse of another (no attribution)
As I rode up to the fragrant barroom
As I rode up to the barroom one day.

In "Folksongs of North America, 1960, Alan Lomax dropped the previous versions and used another text- "from p. 417 of "Cowboy Songs,"- but it is not!. He gives a version of Tom Sherman's Barroom instead. No attribution.
As I rode out by Tom Sherman's barroom,
As I rode out so early one day,
'Twas there I espied a handsome young cowboy,
All dressed in white linen, all clothed for the grave.
(Alan Lomax, getting quite upscale in his language).

Stewie, does this help? Looks like the Fifes, in the volume you have, used still another version. I don't have their "Cowboy and Western songs." In the volume I have, they say that they have 150 texts- Laredo 39, Tom Sherman 37, Laden, Laterin, etc. 25, Various, inc St. James, Austin's fair city, etc. 31, and without localization, 18 (odd, in this list they don't mention Galveston which is included in their reprint of Thorp's booklet of 1908.)

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:38 PM

Since I have been ripped off by lying cheating so called song writers, their claims to ownership/authorship remain suspect.

Mr Maynard was probably a one off, he never wrote another hit did he?

If so, the song was probably made up by some illiterate African American Cowboy and later adapted to flowery verses by some other wit, later the snake Maynard made a buck.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 06:03 PM

For the story of Maynard, I suggest you wait for the book, He did write other cowboy songs, but they were not "hits" in the way that Tom Sherman's bar-room was. He certainly never made any money from the song.

I have posted Thorp's 1908 version, with notes from the Fifes, of "The Cow Boys Lament" in thread 3918: Cow Boys Lament
It is quite different from the cobbled together Lomax version. Note- In 1921, Thorp adopted the Lomax bowdlerization.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Stewie
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 07:03 PM

Q - many thanks for that. That is the one - [JL, 320]. It is interesting that it is from Slim Critchlow - my favourite singer of cowboy songs. It shares several stanzas with a longer version by Slim on the 1999 Arhoolie CD reissue of his 1970 recordings for Barry Oliver.

I might as well post these. Here is the text of JL, 320:


As I was passing by Tom Sherwin's bar room -
Tom Sherwin's bar room so early one day -
Who should I see but a handsome young cowboy
Stretched out on a blanket and all pale and gray

Oh, his eyes were fast glazing, and death was approaching,
His white lips were curled and tortured with pain
And he spoke in a whisper of a scene far behind him
Of his home in the East which he'd ne'er see again

Oh tell my old father I've tried to live honest –
Tried to shoot square and give all men their due –
But I first took to drinking and then to gambling
Which brought me to trouble , and now I am through

'Oh, tell him I wish I had heeded his warning,
But now it's too late, and I bid him adieu;
Got shot in the breast by a Dodge city gambler
Who dealt from the bottom, and I'm dying today

'Please gather up my last hand of poker –
The one that I dropped when I got my death wound –
Send it and my six gun home to my brother
After you've buried me deep in the tomb

'Tell him these things are what ruined his brother
And never to part with the last fatal hand,
But carry it always just as a reminder
If e'er he should drift to this wild cattle land

'Oh, write me a letter to my gray-haired mother
And break the news gently to my sister so dear;
But not one word of this shall you mention
When a crowd gathers round you my story to hear

'Tell them I loved them all through my wild wanderings
And that nobody here knows my name;
I got in a battle while playing stud poker
And I don't want my people to share in my shame

'Oh, there is another as dear as my sister
Lovely and pure as the dew on a rose;
Tell her to wait for her lover no longer
For he sleeps where the prairie wind smoothly blows

'Tell her that her image has always been with me
Carrying me up through the long, lonely days
And that I'm taking it down through the valley
Locked in my heart to be with me always'

Source: B text for 'Streets of Laredo' in Austin E. and Alta S. Fife 'Cowboy and Western Songs: A Comprehensive Anthology' Clarkson N. Potter Inc, New York, 1969, p 322.

Here is my transcription of Slim Critchlow's recording. In the first line, I am not sure whether he is singing 'ranches' or 'ranges', but I have opted for the latter.

COWBOY'S LAMENT

So early one morning I rode o'er the ranges
So early one morning I rode over there
I spied a young cowboy, so brave, young and handsome
With coal-black eyes and wavin'-black hair

His eyes were fast glazing and death was approaching
His white lips were curled and tortured with pain
As he spoke in a whisper of a scene far behind him
Of his home in Montana he'd never see again

Oh, beat your drum slowly, play your fife lowly
And play the dead march as you carry me on
In the grave throw me and roll the sod o'er me
For I'm a young cowboy, I know I've done wrong

Well, I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,
These word he did say as I boldly stepped by
So come sit beside me and hear my sad story
Got shot in a gunfight and now I must die

My home's in Montana, I wear a bandana
My spurs they are silver, my horse is a bay
I took to card playin' (in) the house I was stayin'
Got shot in the breast, I'm dying today

Go gather around you a crowd of young cowboys
And tell them the story of this my sad fate
Tell one and the other before they go further
To stop their wild roving before it's too late

Please gather up my last hand of poker –
The one that I dropped when I got my death wound –
Take it and my six gun home to my kid brother
After you've buried me deep in the tomb

Tell him these things are what ruined his brother
And never to part with the last fatal hand,
But carry it always just as a reminder
If e'er he should come to this wild cattle land

Oh, beat your drum slowly, play your fife lowly
And play the dead march as you carry me on
In the grave throw me and roll the sod o'er me
For I'm a young cowboy, I know I've done wrong

Please write me a letter to my gray-haired mother
And break the sad news to my sister so dear
But not one word of this shall you mention
When a crowd gathers round you my story to hear

Oh, there is another more dear than a sister
She's lovely and pure as the dew on a rose
Tell her to wait for her lover no longer
For he sleeps where the prairie winds smoothly blow

Tell her that her image has always been with me
Carrying me up through the long, lonely days
And that I'm taking it down through the valley
Locked in my heart to be with me always

Then, it's sling your rope slowly and rattle your spurs lowly
And give a wild yiiiip as you carry me on
Take me to the green valley, there lay the sod o'er me
For I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong

Please bring me a cup, a cup of cold water
A cup of cold water, the bold fellow said
But when I had returned, his soul had departed
And gone to the Giver, the cowboy was dead

We beat the drum slowly, we played the fife lowly
We bitterly wept as we bore him along
Oh, we all loved our comrade, so brave, young and handsome
We all loved our comrade although he'd done wrong

Source: transcription from Slim Critchlow 'Cowboy Songs: The Crooked Trail to Holbrook' Arhoolie CD 479.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:34 PM

Fife and Fife, 1966, in "Songs of the Cowboys" by Thorp offer a composite text taken from "several hundred possible choices," pp. 154-160. It includes a number of verses of which I would like to find the rest of the song. Anyone know them?

1. (6.4) Says "Come dear mother, mother, an' seat yourself nigh me
Come dear father too, and sing me a song
Tell them to bring 'long a bunch of them sweet-smellin' roses
So they can't smell me while they drive me along.

2. (9.) Oh, bury beside me my knife and six-shooter,
My spurs on my heel, my rifle by my side,
And over my coffin put a bottle of brandy
That the cowboys may drink as they carry me along.

3. Over my coffin put handfuls of lavender,
Handfuls of lavender on evry side,
Bunches of roses all over my coffin
Saying "There goes a cowboy cut down in his pride."

4. (12.1)Then drag your rope slowly and rattle your spurs lowly,
And give a wild whoop as you carry me along;
And take me to Boot Hill and cover me with roses,
I'm just a young cowboy and I know I done wrong.

Leading an unmounted horse with a rope dragging behind was a custom in some areas at a cowman's funeral.

() numbers from Fife and Fife. Probably these are in their notes only, but there is a chance someone has the odd one in a songbook.

---

Multiple threads combined to avoid splitting the discussion. Messages below are from a new thread.

Subject: Lyr Add: COW BOYS LAMENT (Thorp 1908)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Dec 03 - 08:25 PM

No one seems to have posted the first printed version of "Cow Boys Lament, printed in 1908 by N. Howard Thorp in the booklet "Songs of the Cowboys," pp. 29-30. He published an entirely different one in 1921 in a book with the same title, often cited incorrectly as the 1908 version.
The Thorp original is set in Galveston, Texas, where the cow-boy was deceived by a village belle and killed by a Mexican. He gives no indication of where he obtained this song, seemingly not the one obtained from a cowpuncher named in the 1921 volume, and borrowed from the 'synthetic' (the word of Fife and Fife in their discussion of the song) version given by Lomax.

Lyr. Add: COW BOYS LAMENT (Thorp 1908)

'Twas once in the saddle I used to be happy
'Twas once in my saddle I used to be gay
But I first took to drinking, then to gambling
A shot from a six-shooter took my life away.

My curse, let it rest, let it rest on the fair one
Who drove me from friends that I loved and from home
Who told me she loved me, just to deceive me
My curses rest upon her, wherever she roam.

Oh she was fair, Oh she was lovely
The belle of the Village the fairest of all
But her heart was as cold as the snow on the mountains
She gave me up for the glitter of gold.

I arrived in Galveston in old Texas
Drinking and gambling I went to give o'er
But, I met with a Greaser and my life he has finished
Home and relations I ne'er shall see more.

Send for my father, Oh send for mother
Send for the surgeon to look at my wounds
But I fear it is useless I feel I am dying
I'm a young cow-boy cut down in my bloom.

Farewell my friends, farewell my relations
My earthly career has cost me sore
The cow-boy ceased talking, they knew he was dying
His trials on earth, forever were o'er.

Chor.
Beat your drums lightly, play your fifes merrily
Sing your dearth (sic) march as you bear me along
Take me to the grave-yard, lay the sod o'er me
I'm a young cow-boy and know I've done wrong.

@cowboy @death

Quite different from "Tom Sherman's Barroom," set in Dodge City, Kansas and "Streets of Laredo," set on the Mexican border 300 miles to the southwest of Galveston.
From a complete facsimile of the 1908 privately printed booklet of 24 "Songs of the Cowboys," appended to Thorp and Fife, "Songs of the Cowboys," 1966, Austin E. and Alta S. Fife, Clarkson N. Potter, NY.

---

Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: COW BOYS LAMENT (Thorp 1908)
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 03 - 08:33 PM

Wow -- a clear line straight to Laredo, eh?

Thanks!


A

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: COW BOYS LAMENT (Thorp 1908)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 12:50 AM

In Cowboy and Western Songs, a Comprehensive Anthology (Austin & Alta Fife, 1969), the Thorp text Q posted is titled "Streets of Laredo" - except that the first line is "Twas onece in my saddle, I used to be happy." The second text in Fife is "Tom Sherwin's Bar Room," (JL 320) which Stewie posted (above) some time ago.

What's the deal with Fife & Fife? Did they publish two books of cowboy songs, one in 1966 and one in 1969? Apparently, the Thorp text appears in both Fife books.
The tune in the Fife & Fife book is different from any I've heard. It's from Myra Hull's "Cowboy Ballads" from the Kansas Historical Quarterly [February 1939]. I like it.

---

Click to play

---

While we're on the subject of tunes, I'm wondering about the second on in the DT version of Streets of Laredo (tune here). Sounds like "My Home's in Montana" to me - is it a legitimate tune for "Cowboy's Lament"? According to this thread, there certainly seems to be a solid connection between Montana and Laredo.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 05:08 AM

Joe: "My home's in Montana" mentioned earlier by 'Q' (3 March @6:14)

Nigel

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 03:23 PM

The 1966 book by "Thorp" --- but written by Fife and Fife is a scholarly tome, taking only the songs published in 1908 by Thorp, comparing different texts and versions and giving the backgrounds to the songs as the Fifes' knew them at the time of publication. In the back is a complete facsimile of Thorp's original 1908 booklet.

Citation of the book is usually under the name N. Howard Thorp, but his contribution was the original Estancia NM text of "Songs of the Cowboys," with his manuscript markings indicating which were his compositions. The title page reads "Songs of the Cowboys by N. Howard ("Jack") Thorp: Variants, Commentary, Notes and Lexicon" by Austin E. and Alta S. Fife, Music editor Naunie Gardner. Clarkson N. Potter, Inc./Publisher New York. The spine of the book reads "Songs of the Cowboys, Thorp and Fife." The dustjacket reads "Songs of the Cowboys, The first printed collection---by N. Howard (Jack) Thorp--- Variants---." These differences in the publisher's headings have led to confusion regarding author citation among book dealers.

The long discussion of the "Cow Boy's Lament" occupies pages 148-190, with line-by-line comparison of major texts. To the discussion of the 'Lament' are appended: Bibliography, Significant texts, manuscripts, and field recordings; List of printed texts; Commercial recordings; and a List of papers with discussion of the song.

Change to the interpretations of the "Cow Boys Lament" may come from the work of Dr. Hoy and his study of the contribution to the song by the cattleman Maynard, but apparently this has not yet been published (see another thread).

The 1969 book is an anthology, as stated, without analysis, and covers many songs not in Thorp.   

Songs indicated in the facsimile as his by Thorp are:
Little Joe, the Wrangler
Chopo
The Pecos River Queen
Cowboys New Years Dance
Speckles

Joe, you are correct; the first and second lines both say "my saddle."

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST,plz HELP
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 04:46 AM

can anyone help me i need info on Rode in america its a town in argentina????

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 01:57 PM

Guest- not familiar with "Rode."

There are four towns named "Rodeo" that are large enough to be mentioned in an atlas. The New Mexico town is the only one I am familiar with.

Rodeo, California
Rodeo. New Mexico (elevation 4100 feet,in the boot heel of New Mexico on the Arizona border; ranching and mountainous country, between the Hatchet and Chiricahua Mts.).
Rodeo, Mexico (About 75 miles north of the city of Durango; ranching, mining, etc.)
Rodeo, Argentina.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 08:24 PM

Dr. James Hoy has announced that his book, The Winning of the Wild, will be published this fall by Texas Tech University Press.

It covers the life of F. H. Maynard, who wrote "Tom Sherman's Bar Room" ("Cowboy's Lament") in the 1870s, and includes his poems.

It will be an important addition to the knowledge of this period in western history.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Feb 10 - 07:57 PM

refr.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 12:13 AM

The location of Tom Sherman's [sometimes varied to Sherwin's] barroom appears from above to be well established as Dodge City, Kansas. But Hedy West sang this version as "Lee Tharin's Barroom". Was there likewise a Lee Tharin who kept a barroom? If so, is it known where? The name is slightly nearer to Sherwin than to Sherman; but still a long way variant.

Is this a valuable addition to the above way-back discussion now refreshed, or merely an obfuscation, I wonder?

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 01:12 AM

And has anyone any comment on the way the full-military-honours funeral motif, with its uniformed pall-bearers, muffled drum & fife &c, has so incongruously, &, it would appear, universally, survived into this cowboy context from the earlier 'Young soldier/sailor' British versions ~~ tho, as I have remarked before on other threads, why a young serviceman should ever have considered himself entitled to such an honour for dying, not gloriously in battle, but from a dose of the pox, I have never understood. Why, what vain & conceited impertinence, to be sure!

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 01:01 PM

1. Perhaps Hoy's book will answer some of the questions about 'Tom Sherman's' bar room. Various singers have changed the name and the lyric in the last 100 and some years since the song came into popular use.

2. The form of the funeral may have roots in the old country, but many aspects as portrayed in the song were in use in civilian funerals in the US, esp. the West.
Pall bearers wore 'Sunday best' or their best work clothes. I have read of cowboy funerals where the 'best' were western dress with boots, Stetson, etc. The song has from six to sixteen pall-bearers, the number depending on the imagination and inventiveness of the singer.
Some funerals in the West had musicians, usually just a drum or fife and drum, but some western frontier towns had bands, e. g., Dodge City, which were well known.
One funeral in Dodge City, led by the band, was reported in papers across the country- although I vaguely remember that it was for a dog, or was it a female saloon-owner? My memory is poor and I would have to go back to the literature.

3. Did the song descend from the UK versions? Probably, but remember that many customs, military and civil, were brought across the pond, but changed and modified in various ways as time passed.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo
From: GUEST,Mike in Jersey
Date: 13 Apr 10 - 07:11 AM

Back in the late 50's and early 60's we used to sing the "Cloggy" version.
The next verses went something like this:-

He said "From your attire I see you're a climber
I see you're a climber and so once was I
But I went out a climbing on the Great Slab of Clogwen
And fell from the Bow and I'm going to die"

Give me six stalwart climbers to carry my coffin
And six pretty maidens to weep at my head
.............(I can't remember the next two lines.

The final verse went:-

"Bury me deep at the foot of great Clogwen
Deep in the sound of the wild ravens' call
Put a sod on my feet and one on my head
To deaden the screams of my friends as they fall"

Cloggy refers to Clogwy d'ur Arddu ( described in the book "The Black Cliff". It stands under the Snowdon railway and is the backwall of Cwm d'ur Arddu. The "Bow" and "Great Slab" are famous climbing routes on the crag.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo
From: banjoman
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 05:53 AM

Somewhere in my old record collection I have a recording of Roy Guest (remember him) singing Streets of Laredo.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 10:13 AM

Folkways did a whole album devoted to the song, entitled 'The Unfortunate Rake'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo
From: IanC
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 11:07 AM

The use of Mercury as a cure for syphilis was known to Shakespeare. The treatment was evidently introduced at the end of the 15th Century ...

Mercury as a therapeutic agent was introduced as early as 1497. Before that it had been used by the Arabs in the treatment of scabies, psoriasis, leprosy and other skin diseases.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE DYING COWBOY
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Jan 16 - 05:41 PM

A whole book has been written on the song family in question:

"I Went Down to St. James Infirmary," by Robert W. Harwood (Kitchener, Ont.: Harland, 2008).

Harwood asserts that cowboy Francis Henry Maynard "copyrighted" the cowboy version in 1876. While supporting Maynard's claim, his biography by Jim Hoy, Cowboy's Lament (2010), makes no mention of a copyright, which would seem highly improbable anyway.

Maynard published a booklet of his verse titled "Rhymes of the Range and Trail" (1911) which included the following:


THE DYING COWBOY

As I rode down by Tom Sherman's bar-room,
Tom Sherman's bar-room so early one day,
There I espied a handsome young ranger
All wrapped in white linen, as cold as the clay.
"I see by your outfit that you are a ranger,"
The words that he said as I went riding by,
"Come sit down beside me, and hear my sad story,
I'm shot through the breast and I know I must die.

Chorus:
Then muffle the drums and play the dead marches;
Play the dead marches as I'm carried along;
Take me to the church-yard and lay the sod o'er me,
I'm a young ranger and I know I've done wrong.

"Go bear a message to my grey-haired mother
Go break the news to gently to my sister so dear,
But never a word of this place do you mention,
As they gather around you my story to hear.
Then there is another as dear as a sister,
Who will bitterly weep when she knows I am gone,
But another more worthy may win her affection,
For I'm a young ranger — I know I've done wrong."

Chorus

"Once in my saddle I used to be dashing;
Once in my saddle, I used to be brave;
But I first took to gambling, from that to drinking,
And now in my prime, I must go to my grave.
Go gather around you a crowd of gay rangers,
Go tell them the tale of their comrade's sad fate,
Tell each and all to take timely warning,
And leave their wild ways before it's too late."

Chorus

"Go, now, and bring me a cup of cold water,
To bathe my flushed temples," the poor fellow said.
But ere I returned, the spirit had left him,
Had gone to is Giver — the ranger was dead.
So we muffled the drums and played the dead marches,
We bitterly wept as we bore him along,
For we all loved the ranger, so brave and so handsome,
We all loved our comrade, although he'd done wrong.


Maynard told a journalist in 1924:

"During the winter of 1876 I was working for a Grimes outfit which had started north with a trail herd [from Texas]...We were wintering on the Salt Fork of the Arkansas river on the border of Kansas....

"One of the favorite songs of the cowboys in those days was called 'The Dying Girl's Lament,' the story of a girl who had been betrayed by her lover...

"I had often amused myself by trying to write verses, and one dull winter day in camp to while away the time I began writing a poem which could be sung to the tune of 'The Dying Girl's Lament.' I made it a dying ranger or a cowboy....

"After I had finished the new words to the song I sang it to the boys in the outfit. They liked it and began singing it. It became popular with boys in other outfits ...and from that time on I heard it sung everywhere on the range and the trail."

Not long after this interview, Maynard told song collector Ina Sires that "he wrote the words to fit the tune of an old song that used to be sung by the cowboys called 'The Dying Girl's Lament,' which was the story of a girl dying in a hospital, and which began like this:

"'As I walked down by St. James Hospital, St. James Hospital so early one day, etc.' The song was accepted by the cowboys."

While Maynard was apparently responsible for *one* adaptation of 'The Dying Girl's Lament,' there's no way to know if he was truly the first to adapt the song to the American West. No text before Thorp's very different (and oddly "literary") one (1908) seems to survive.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Lighter
Date: 04 Jan 19 - 10:23 AM

Here's a pre-Thorp reference, from the Buffalo [N.Y.] Evening News (Oct. 14, 1904), p. 12:

SONGS AND POEMS ASKED FOR.

Editor Evening News:

Please ask for the following songs: "Barney McCoy," "The Old Sod Shanty on the Plain," "Dying Darkey," "Ship's Carpenter," "The Dying Cowboy's Lament." The chorus to the last one runs something like this:

Once in my saddle I used to go happy,
Once in my saddle I used to go gay;
I first took to drinking and then to card playing,
And shot in the heart and dying I now lay.

                                                    Mrs. F. M.

Perry, Oct. 12, 1904.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Lighter
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 08:24 PM

Back in the 1950s, Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke collected a version of the Civil War ballad "The Cumberland's Crew" from Orlo Brandon of Peterborough, Ontario, which he sang (surprisingly) to the "Tom Sherman's Barroom" tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQz6fi8-lO8

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST,Randall
Date: 08 Dec 21 - 11:28 AM

Ken Maynard

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST,Randall Landfair
Date: 21 Dec 21 - 05:23 PM

So the first version of The Cowboy's Lament to be copyrighted were handwritten by a cattle driver in 1876 who's name was Francis Henry Maynard, and 53 years later in 1929 another cowboy named Ken Maynard (The American Boy's Favorite Cowboy) pioneer's the first successful dubbing of his version of The Cowboy's Lament to become the first singing cowboy on the silver screen his version on the the Talkie Hit from Universal Picture "The Wagon Master". And that movie is nowhere to be found for viewing. And what's more strange to me is they are not blood related!

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 21 - 06:15 AM

The 1833 Treaty fixed borders for what was to be a "Permanent home to the whole Creek "Nation" of Indians. 1833 Treaty, preamble, 7 stat. 418. It also established that the United States will grant a patent, in fee simple, to the Creek "Nation" of Indians for the land assigned said "Nation" by this treaty." ART. III, id. j
                   opinion of the court (2020)

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Dec 21 - 09:52 AM

"The nation" doesn't figure in Frank Maynard's version.

Since a number of current states were still territories after 1876, it may be that the "nation" refers in a loose way to "the states," especially since "nation" essentially rhymes with "relations."

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 21 - 08:24 PM

And later acts of Congress left no doubt. In 1866, the United States entered yet another treaty with the Creek "nation" (written by the Supreme Court in 2020)

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 21 - 09:30 PM

Act of 1909 and further still, Congress offered the Creek "Nation" a one-time opportunity to file suit in Federal Court Of Claims for any and all legal and equitable claims arising under or growing out of any treaty or agreement between the United States and The Creek Indian "Nation"
                United States V Creek "Nation"
Two years later Francis Henry Maynard published "Live in the "Nation

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Dec 21 - 11:30 AM

As mentioned, Maynard's song does not refer to "the nation."

The line could have appeared any time after 1875. Its intended meaning probably can't be ascertained for sure.

Here's an 1881 example where "the Nation" refers to the United States as a whole:

"There are Democrats in the South who mean to live in the Nation and not in any aggregate of petty provinces any longer." -Cleveland Leader, March 15, 1881.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Dec 21 - 05:35 AM

Ken Maynard's song does mention "My friends and relation they live in the Nation> 1866, the United States entered yet another treaty with the Creek "nation"

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Dec 21 - 06:41 AM

Charles Goodnight invented the chuck wagon in 1866 I bet he knew when he left Texas where the Indian "NATION" was on his way to Colorado

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Dec 21 - 09:29 AM

The only text for which Maynard claimed authorship (upthread on Jan. 6, 2016) doesn't contain the phrase.

Subject: RE: Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Dec 21 - 04:08 PM

I think Ken Maynard might have have thought it was the Indian Nation and trying to find a author of over 2,000 versions of over the pond ballad's sang by cowboy's around cattle and campfire's and growing as we speak is a daunting task to say the least. All I know is He pocketed the $1000.00 they paid him to croon it!. I see your point no one could know for sure