Lyr. Add: Cowboy Jack
From Ina Sires, 1928

1
He was just a lonely cowboy,
With a heart so brave and true,
And he learned to love a maiden,
With eyes of heav'n's own blue.
2
They had learned to love each other,
And had named their wedding day,
When trouble came between them,
And Jack he rode away.
3
He joined a band of cowboys,
And tried to forget her name,
But out on the lonely prairie
She waits for him the same.
4
One night when work was finished,
Just at the close of day
Some one said "Sing a song, Jack,
That will drive dull care away."
5
When Jack began his singing
His mind it wandered back
For he sang of a brave true maiden
Who waited at home for him.
6
"Way out on the lonely prairie
Where the skies are always blue,
Your sweetheart waits for you, Jack,
Your sweetheart waits for you."
7
Jack left the camp next morning
Breathing his sweetheart's name,
"I'll go and ask forgiveness
For I know that I was to blame."
8
But when he reached the prairies
He found a newly-made mound
And his friends they kindly told him
They had laid his loved one down.
9
They said as she was dying
She breathed her sweetheart's name,
And said as with her last breathing
To tell him when he came:
10
"Your sweetheart waits for you Jack,
Your sweetheart waits for you;
Way out on the lonely prairie
Where the skies are always blue."

Note: "In making my collection of cowboy songs I found a few love songs. The cowboys were far removed from the influences of homes, mothers, sisters and sweethearts and their continual battling with the wilderness was not conducive to the writing of love songs. Here we have expressed the cowboys' belief in the purity and faithfulness of women. This melody was used as waltz music at dances."

Note from introduction, "Collector's Note": "My work has been lightened by the collections of Howard Thorpe and John A. Lomax. I have, however, secured my melodies directly from the cowboys, by visiting ranches, attending dances, and
riding on roundups in the western states where people still dance all night to the tune of the fiddle. I spent my early life on the ranch, so that from childhood the cowboy and his life have been familiar to me."

Pp. 12-13, with musical score, Ina Sires, 1928, Songs of the Open Range, C. C. Birchard & Co., Boston New York. "All rights reserved, including the right of radio transmission."

The tune, and most of the words, are the same as those later used by the Carter family.