Lyr Req: Slowly Does...? / Gently Does the Trick

Subject: Lyr Req: 'Slowly Does the Trick'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 09:59 AM

I'm looking for the rest of the words of a cowboy (or rodeo) song I once had. In about 1950, when I was getting interested in guitar and folksongs, my favorite aunt gave me an old songbook which had been published by or on behalf of a radio station in Montana, Wyoming, or one of the neighboring states, probably in the 30s.

The song had to do with what you need to do when bucked off your horse, and the part I remember is as follows:

"Come down easy, careful, never be too quick
Your eye the distance gauges
So you land by easy stages,
Oh, it's slowly does the trick!"

Anybody?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Slowly Does the Trick'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 10:54 AM

*

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Slowly Does the Trick'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 11:02 AM

I'll refresh this one more time. "Live in hopes, die in despair."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Slowly Does the Trick'
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Nov 07 - 02:23 PM

Google Book Search tells me that these words appear in a book called "Frontier Ballads" by Charles Joseph Finger, 1927, page 115:

Chorus: For it's gently, softly, slowly does the trick,
You'd walk clanky, ...

-and-

Chorus: Come down softly, gently, easy does the trick,
Just fall easy, careful, never be too quick,
Your eye the distance gauges
So you land by easy stages ...

[I suggest you click the link above and then click "Find this book in a library."]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Slowly Does the Trick'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 24 Nov 07 - 04:17 PM

Thanx, Jim.

I did that, and lo and behold, my city/county library has it. I put in an on-line request, and they should have it to my branch library in about a week, would be my guess.

Thanx again!
Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Slowly Does the Trick
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:29 PM

Yesterday I got the book, Frontier Ballads from the library. That's good, so far.

But I found that there were ten pages left out of the volume, which were recognized with a stamped "officially noted" on the very page where I found part of "Slowly Does the Trick".   Maybe the skip of ten pages was in the volume coming from the publisher, but I can see that the binding on this 1927 book is not original but rather a rebinding job, probably done by or for the library in the eighty years since original publication.

The book as bound (or rather, "rebound") picks up in the middle of the song. It doesn't show the notation of the tune, which is not a big problem to me because I know the tune, but I suspect there is at least one more verse before the two verses given in this volume.

I expect to post the words that I have, for eventual inclusion in the DT, but I sure would like to get the first part of the song.

Any ideas? Any help?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Slowly Does the Trick
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 07:46 PM

A library in my area has it, too. I have just arranged to borrow it. If I don't post it here in a week or so, please PM me to remind me.

I HAVE seen books that were assembled incorrectly by the printer, but I don't think that necessarily means that all copies were assembled the same way.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Slowly Does the Trick
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 04:36 PM

I have ordered, on line, Carson J. Robison's World's Greatest Mountain and Western Songs or some title close to that, which contains this song.

Interestingly, it seems that this was published in 1930, three years after Finger's Frontier Ballads, which gives the impression, at least, that Finger learned this song quite some years before. I'm led to suspect that Robison appropriated an older song and claimed it as his own. I'm going to look into that if I can.

Once I have the book I've ordered, I'll post the words, and maybe someone will be able to render the music for MIDI for the DT.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: Lyr Add: GENTLY DOES THE TRICK
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 11:45 PM

Here it is, from "Frontier Ballads," by Charles J. Finger, 1927, p. 114f.

"That fire of inspiration which filled the Armless Wonder led him to adapt strange songs to local conditions. By way of instance I give his Gently Does the Trick which has all the earmarks of a parody. He sang it to this catching tune: [Music notation appears here.]

GENTLY DOES THE TRICK

1. Come all and hear me sing
A song both good and wise.
I'll make the canyon ring
With valuable advice.
In going through this world,
You'll find it rarely wrong
To keep a steady pace
And keep on going strong.

CHORUS: For it's gently, softly, slowly does the trick.
Get on easy, careful; never be too quick.
The bronc fresh from the pasture
May not be a speedy laster,
For it's gently does the trick.

2. Now if in prison you
Should happen for to land,
For picking up a steer
That bears a stranger brand,
Be gentle, meek, and mild.
In that way you may gain,
But if you cut up rough,
You'll get the ball and chain.

CHORUS: For it's gently, softly, slowly does the trick.
You'd walk clanky, hobbledy, not a bit too quick.
They'd keep your legs in order
And you'd softly cuss the warder,
Saying, "Gently does the trick."

3. If a broncho bucks
And lifts you in the air,
You have a kind of feel
You'd rather not be there.
Your elevation feels,
Well, anything but nice,
But don't come down a whack;
Just take a friend's advice:

CHORUS: Come down softly, gently, easy does the trick.
Just fall easy, careful; never be too quick.
Your eye the distance gauges
So you land by easy stages,
For it's gently does the trick.

"The song was taken up by the funny man in Mollie Bailey's Great Road Show and so gained a wide popularity. For Mollie Bailey was our Barnum, our Jefferson, our universal impresario. Her outfit consisted of a dozen horses and a few wagons, and she made her rounds to places where the railroads did not touch, or to railroad points unvisited by larger shows…. Mollie Bailey was responsible for a tremendous amount of blurring of original authorship. But after all, popularity makes the folk song in the long run."