The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #92353   Message #3043191
Posted By: GUEST,Sandy LaPrelle
29-Nov-10 - 07:49 PM
Thread Name: Canadian disaster songs: research project
Subject: Lyr Add: FOUR RODE BY (Ian Tyson)
This story is supposed to be true, and a friend of mine says he met a descendant of the "wild old family"

FOUR RODE BY
(by Ian Tyson)

Willie Palmer's stallion was no twenty dollar cayuse
And when the wild ones stole him he hightailed it into town
Ussher in those days was keeping order in the district
But before he'd ridden thirty miles the McLean boys shot him down

chorus:
Four rode by
Rode through here
Three Mclean boys and that wild Alex Hare
They were armed
All were armed
It was them I'd have known them anywhere

A shepherd known as Kelly saw the wild one as they passed
They shot him with a rifle and took his watch and chain
When the posse found him in the lonely cabin
A hunger took their pride away and no one else was slain

Chorus

They hung the boys in January 1883
First time in that province that they'd strung up brothers three
And their sons killed 19 Germans cross the seas back in '17
One thing that's for damned sure they're a wild old family