Dear All,


Although not the song you are hunting for, I think "Stern Old Bachelor" is a great tune with enjoyable, if tongue in cheek, and sometimes rather twee, lyrics. Another good one is "I've No Use for the Women".

The lyrics and Midi Files of both (which I have shown below) used to appear in www.traditionalmusic.co.uk (in the "Folk Revival songbook" and "Cowboy songbook" respectively) but were taken off due to bandwidth restrictions. However both are available, along with many hundreds of others, on a CD available via the above website, which I can highly recommend, costing only about £15 Sterling. A fantastic source of lyrics and tunes, often with a little bit of history, and plenty of links also. (I have no connection with the firm except as a a very satisfied customer).

^^^
STERN OLD BACHELOR

The singer describes his life in the "little sod shanty dear to me." He is proud that "I'm a stern old bachelor, from matrimony free." He rejoices that he can live in squalor, snore all he wants, stay out late and never have to explain where he has been

I am a stern old bachelor,
My age is forty-four-
I do declare I'II never live
With women any more.
I have a stove that's worth ten cents,
A table worth fifteen,
I cook my gruel in oyster cans
And keep my things so clean.

cho: O little sod shanty
Little sod shanty dear to me,
I am a stern old bachelor
From matrimony free.

When I come home at night
I smile and walk right in
I never hear a voice call out, or say,
"Where have you been?"
On a cold and stormy night
In my cozy little shack,
I sing my songs and think my thoughts
With no one to talk back.
I go to bed when e'er I please
And wake up just the same,
I wash my socks three times a year
With no none to complain.
At night when I'm in peaceful sleep
My snores can do no harm,
I never have to walk the floor
With a baby on my arm.

I am a stern old bachelor,
My age is forty-four-
I do declare I'II never live
With women any more.
And when I die and go to heaven
As all good bachelors do,
I'll never ever have to fear
My wife will get there too.

^^^
I'VE NO USE FOR THE WOMEN

Now, I've got no use for the women
A true one can seldom be found,
They use a man for his money,
When it's gone, they'll turn him down.
They're all alike at the bottom,
Selfish and grasping for all.
They'll stay by a man when he's winning
And laugh in his face at a fall.

My pal was an honest young puncher;
Honest and upright and true.
But he turned to a hard-shooting gunman,
On account of a girl named Lou.
He fell in with evil companions,
The kind that are better off dead;
When a gambler insulted her picture,
He filled him full of lead.

All through the long night they trailed him,
Through mesquite and thick chaparral.
And I couldn't help think of that woman
As I saw him pitch and fall;
If she'd been the pal that she should have,
He might have been raising a son,
Instead of out there on the prairie,
To die by the ranger's gun.

Death's sharp sting did not trouble,
His chances for life were too slim,
But where they were putting the body
Was all that worried him.
He lifted his head on his elbow;
The blood from his wounds flowed red.
He gazed at his pals grouped around him,
As he whispered to them and said:

"Oh bury me out on the prairie,
Where the coyotes may howl o'er my grave.
Bury me out on the prairie,
But from them my bones please save.
Wrap me up in my blankets,
And bury me deep in the ground.
Cover me over with boulders
Of granite gray and round."

So we buried him out on the prairie,
Where the coyotes can howl o'er his grave,
And his soul is now a-resting,
from the unkind cut she gave;
And many another young puncher
As he rides past that pile of stone,
Recalls some similar woman
And thinks of his moldering bones.