The earliest published form of this song is in A Golden Songster, University Club, 1953. If it wasn't printed by his efforts, it was by his consent as he was a member. Note that it is simply titled, Dolores.



E-7            DOLORES
       By James Grafton Rogers          Key G
(Air: "The Foggy, Foggy Dew"-- with variations)

1. In the country down below
   Where the little piñons grow,
   And it's nearly allus half a day to water,
   There us't to stand a town,
   Where a crick come tumbling down,
   From a mesa where she surely hadn't ought'a.
   Her streets were bright
   With candlelight,
   The whole town joined the chorus,
   And every man in sight
   Let his cattle drift all night
   Just to mosey to the town of Old Dolores.

2. Then things just kind of spin
   'Till the sun comes up agin,
   Like the back of some old prairie wagon,
   And would show you dim and red
   Maybe half a hundred head
   Of our saddle ponies standing
   Reins a-draggin'.
   The red mud walls,
   The water falls,
   The whole wide world before us.
   But the 'dobe walls are gone
   And the goat bells in the dawn
   Ain't a jingling in the streets of Old Dolores.

    (Additional Verse by George A. H. Fraser)
   And the strings of peppers hung
   On the house-fronts in the sun,
   Blazin' red as some young puncher's new ban-
   dana,
   And the scented smoke that came
   From the pinon wood aflame
   Smelt like incense to Our Lady of Manana;
   The scarlet lips, the clickin' chips!
   The drinks Ramon poured for us!
   But the friendly lights are dark,
   And the coyote's lonesome bark
   Is the only music now in Old Dolores.

3. The greaser girls that fool
   On the Plaza-- in the cool,
   There was one, I us't to meet her by a willow,
   But I guess most any girl
   Gives a feller's head a whirl
   When the sames been using saddles for a piller.
   The wide-eyed stars,
   The long segars,
   The smiles that waited for us.
   And if there's any little well
   Down inside the Gates of Hell,
   Why I know the boys have named it
   Old Dolores.

Published in "A Golden Treasury," University Club of Denver, 1953 pg. 30-31