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Lyr Req: Way Out There (Bob Nolan)

11 Jun 01 - 11:27 AM (#480814)
Subject: Pete Seeger train song
From: murray@mpce.mq.edu.au

There is a song that Pete Seeger sings on several of the "Rainbow Quest" programs. It is up-tempo with a lot of yodeling.

I would like to know who composed it. Seeger doesn't give credit to anyone including himslef. What is the title of the song? Are the chords/music in any songbook?

Here is the first verse to help identify it.:

A lonely spot I know where no man will go
where the shadows have all the room
I was riding free on the old SP, hummin' a southern tune
When a man come along made me hush my song
Kicked me off away out there

(Yodeling)

Thanks for any information.

Murray

11 Jun 01 - 11:47 AM (#480828)
Subject: RE: Pete Seeger train song
From: Dani

It's on the 1975 album "Together" that he did with Arlo Guthrie. I LOVE that song. The title is "Way Out There", but I can't find it anywhere, either! I'll keep looking...

Dani

11 Jun 01 - 12:30 PM (#480855)
Subject: Lyr Add: WAY OUT THERE (Bob Nolan)
From: GUEST,Roberto

This is the text I have, hope it is what you're looking for. Bye. Roberto Campo

WAY OUT THERE (Bob Nolan)

A lonely spot I know where no man will go
Where the shadows have all the room
I was ridin' free on the old SP
Softly humming a southern tune
When a man came along, made me hush my song
Kicked me off away out there.

So I threw down my load in the desert road
And rested my weary legs
Watched the sinking sun make the tall shadows
Out across the barren plain
Then I hummed a tune to the rising moon
He gets lonesome 'way out there.

And then I closed my eyes to the starlit skies
And I lost myself in dreams
Dreamt the desert sand was a milk-and honey land
Then I woke up with a start
There's a train coming back on that one-way track
Gonna take me 'way from here.

As she was passing by, caught her on the fly
I climbed in an open door
Then I turned around to that desert ground
Saw the spot I will see no more
And as I rode away, heard the pale moon say
"Farewell, pal, it gets lonesome here."

11 Jun 01 - 12:53 PM (#480874)
Subject: RE: Pete Seeger train song
From: Dani

Thanks, Roberto! Who's Bob Nolan?

Dani

11 Jun 01 - 01:00 PM (#480876)
Subject: RE: Pete Seeger train song
From: GUEST

I don't know much about him. He was the leader of the Sons of the Pioneers, and the author of many good songs about the American West, among which Cool Water, Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Outlaws etc. Bye. Roberto Campo

11 Jun 01 - 01:09 PM (#480885)
Subject: RE: Pete Seeger train song
From: Art Thieme

Bob Nolan was an original member of The Sons Of The Pioneers. It's on many of their records and reissues.

Art Thieme

17 Jun 01 - 01:18 AM (#485291)
Subject: RE: Pete Seeger train song
From: murray@mpce.mq.edu.au

Roberto and Art. You did give me one of the answers I was seeking--the author. Another question is, is there any songbook with the chords/notes in it. The lyrics are easy to work out as Pete sings clearly and Roberto gave them anyway.

Thanks

Murray

17 Jun 01 - 11:13 AM (#485419)
Subject: RE: Pete Seeger train song
From: Tedham Porterhouse

Bob Nolan's "Way Out There" has been widely recorded, originally in the 1930s by Nolan's Sons of the Pioneers, a group that included Leonard Slye, the future Roy Rogers.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a Bob Wills version from the 1930s on Mike Regenstrief's radio show.

I've also got recordings of it by Mary McCaslin, Cisco Houston, Hank Snow, Roy Rogers, the Sons of the San Joaquin and, of course, Pete Seeger.

19 Mar 10 - 12:41 PM (#2867714)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Way Out There (Bob Nolan)
From: charles92027

I love this song.
Does anyone have chords for it?

19 Mar 10 - 01:46 PM (#2867746)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Way Out There (Bob Nolan)
From: Seamus Kennedy

Seamus Kennedy has a terrific version of this song on his new CD Sidekicks & Sagebrush.

Check it out here

19 Mar 10 - 02:46 PM (#2867784)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Way Out There (Bob Nolan)
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego

Clarence Robert Nobles, who changed his name to Bob Nolan, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1908. In 1933, he, Tim Spencer and Leonard Slye (who was to become Roy Rogers) formed the group that became known as the "Sons of the Pioneers." As a young boy in the 1940's and '50's, I heard their songs on the radio quite often. Nolan also did some acting in western films of the era. His "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Cool Water" are the best known of his songs, but "Way Out There" is another great example of his evocative use of lyrics.

An ironic twist is that a Canadian-born songwriter created an image that became symbolic of the great unsettled American western landscape, and based it on an imported weed - the "tumbleweed" is actually the Russian Thistle.

By the way, the group "Riders in the Sky" still does a lot of Sons of the Pioneers music in their style.

19 Mar 10 - 03:58 PM (#2867829)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Way Out There (Bob Nolan)
From: Sandy Mc Lean

New Brunswick claims him as a native son, or so I have always believed, but from the above post Manitoba seems correct. From what I can deduct on Google he only lived in New Brunswick for a part of his youth, but his heritage was there. I guess the same way that we in Nova Scotia claim Stan Rogers although he was born and raised in Ontario..