Texas Rangers melody origin

Subject: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: GregMick
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 04:42 AM

I'm trying to find out where the original melody of Texas Rangers ("Come all you Texas Rangers...") is from.

I'm currently doing a show with a friend and folk musician from Louisiana, David Lutken, who is certain the song has British roots, but is unable to find its origins.

Many thanks,
Greg

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From:
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 10:34 AM

Not familiar with the tune, can you post it in ABC format?

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From:
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 10:40 AM

Found a song in the DT with that title. IT includes a MIDI. IS this the song? Texas Rangers

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 10:49 AM

There's a very short sound clip of Ian & Syliva singing it at amazon.com.

I couldn't get the DT midi to play. MY real player said it needed to download new stuff to play it; after I said okay it then told me it couldn't find anything to support playing that clip? Weird.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From:
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 10:57 AM

My computer gives me an error as well with the DT midi file as well.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From:
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 11:00 AM

GregMick, if you go through the Mudcat Forum's Threads (see in the link to the DT I supplied above), we have some discussion on the song and its origins. There is in one of them information from the Folk Song Database as well.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 11:11 AM

Thanks, George, good to know it's not just my PC.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From:
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 11:22 AM

When I came back to report my trials with the DT's MIDI file, I Saw yours. Reminds me, I should send Joe a note about that MIDI. He'll probably find a corrected one, or one of the others will.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From:
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 11:36 AM

From Kansas State Historical Quarterly is an article on Cowboy Ballads and says this

: "The Texas Ranger," another ballad of the trail, is of the familiar "Come, all ye" pattern. It introduces an incident that is a reminder of the fact that the cowboys were useful to the on-coming settlers in repelling Indian attacks and in pushing the frontier westward.

The words of this song are recorded by Louise Pound, Mellinger Henry, John A. Lomax, and others, but the tunes seem to be rare. Of the version here recorded, both words and music were contributed by N. P. Power, Lawrence, February 18, 1938. He set the song down from memory as he heard it in 1876, while a cowboy on the John Hitson cattle ranch, eighteen miles north of Deer Trail, Colo. Mr. Power says that he has never seen the song in print and has no knowledge of the author. His version is much the earliest that I have found.

They also have a link to music at Texas Rangers Sheet Music

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 01:27 PM

The tunes of the originals (see thread 5011- Texas Ranger ) are not preserved. The music linked above by George Seto is as good as any; one in Randolph, Ozark Folksongs is close. Collections show more than one tune.

Two Ranger groups are confused by some singers and songs combined; the Texas Rangers as a civilian unit, and the Texas Confederate Cavalry unit.

Songs of the latter include "Terry's Texas Rangers," sung to the tune of "When the Swallows Homeward Fly," "The Ranger's Lay," tune "I'll Hang My Harp on the Willow Tree," "The Texas Ranger," tune "I'm Afloat," and the better known "Song of the Texas Rangers," sung to "The Yellow Rose of Texas". These songs are collected in Francis D. Allan, 1874, "Allan's Lone Star Ballads, A Collection of Southern Patriotic Songs made During Confederate Times," Burt Franklin (reprint 1970).

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 05:36 PM

I don't know why, but in my head I hear this using the tune for the When the Work's All Done This Fall, which doesn't really scan, from what I can tell and it has never been the tune for it, anyway, from what I can. Just what I *hear*.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 08:45 AM

The Ian and Sylvia version (the one I learned so many years ago) is a cappella. Being a two-voice song, one voice does a basic melody while the other harmonizes. On at least one verse I&S switched voice roles which changed the overall sound of the song. I've always found it to be one of those songs that grabs your interest from both the sound as well as the story.

There is at least one Confederate soldier version with similar lyrics. The publication I saw it in credited the lyrics to a lady back in the post-war nineteenth century.

I've taken the best parts of both lyric sets, done a little re-writing to place the events in Mississippi and Tennessee and do it single-voice a capella in some of my Confederate music programs. I use my lyric version to illustrate how the initial fervor for war had become somewhat dulled by 1862 when the battles became really bloody affairs with many casualties, e.g. "We fought for nine hours fully until the strife was o'er / The like of dead and wounded I'd never seen before." Songs such as this will grab the attention of the audience, especially if they're kids in the 5th - 9th grade, since it gives them a somewhat memorable and dramatic way to learn history that they otherwise don't really care about.

SC

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:37 PM

Can anyone find the reference for the 1874 date assigned the song in the Trad. Ballads Index? The song is early, that I don't doubt; see reference to Belden, later in this post.

The song may have originated with a song sheet or in a newspaper;
the frequent occurrence of a verse similar to this one suggests some imitation of British balladry:

We saw the Indians coming,
Our captain gave command:
'To arms, to arms! he shouted,
And by your horses stand!"
From Belden, version F, MS dated May 29, 1880.

Southern Celt, can you provide the reference for the version cf. Ian & Sylvia lyrics (thread 50119) that is similar to "those of a lady back in the post-war...."? There are three by women about the Confederate Rangers in Allan but none with anywhere near similar lyrics.

No 'captain' was ever killed in actions against the Indians or Mexicans. The largest Ranger loss of life was in the Battle of Stone Houses (see previous thread 50119, linked above), not more than a dozen, probably six.

The Texas Handbook cites an early song about Ranger Mabry (Mustang) Gray, published in 1884 in A. J. Sowell, "Rangers and Pioneers of Texas."
Gray was a killer (not objected to by the Texas government) who died of cholera in the late 1840s. One of his exploits was to capture a group of innocent Mexican traders, tie them up, and execute them. He was in several forays against Indians and Mexican settlers as well as against Mexican troops. First verse:

There was a noble Ranger,
They called him Mustang Gray;
He left his home when a youth,
Went ranging far away.
Also in Dobie, J. F., 1932, "Mustang Gray...," Texas Folklore Society. Not seen.
See Handbook of Texas Online, Gray

Randolph printed several versions (collected c. 1928) in which many Rangers were killed fighting Indians, mentioning a captain, but no mention of him being killed (Ozark Folksongs, vol. 2, pp. 169-173, two tunes given).
"War Song," collected in 1918 by Cox, concerns the Civil War.

The earliest mention I have found of a captain being slain is in a version collected in 1906:
Two verses-
We fought them full nine hours;
And when the strife was o'er
The like of dead and wounded
I never saw before.

And two as good old captains
As ever ranged the West
Were lying side by side
With arrows in their breasts.
Belden, Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society.

Belden mentions one with 10 verses, "compiled in Gentry County in the seventies of the last century, but does not give the lyrics, citing similarity to a version to that in the 1880 MS mentioned above.

I have refreshed the older thread.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 05:44 PM

The most striking melody associated with "Texas Rangers" is the modal tune recorded by The Cartwright Bros. around 1930.

O. J. Abbott, the great Ontario singer, used the same tune for "The Keyhole in the Door"! He'd learned that song in Canada in the 1890s.

Those are the only two songs I know of that use the tune.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: 12-stringer
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 07:36 PM

One other song which uses the same melody is "Rowan County Crew," an east KY feud chronicle composed by J W Day around 1885.

Isn't one of Sarah Ogan Gunning's 1930s labor songs from east KY also set to this melody?

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 07:45 PM

Somebody let me know about the corrupted tune file earlier this week, and I had been meaning to post a tune this afternoon. Late this evening, I got around to adding MIDI files for the McNeil and Lomax (North America) versions, I have to say that neither one sounds like the song I know - I sing the Ian & Sylvia version. Where'd it come from? The Lomax version is similar to Ian & Sylvia, but there are major differences.

---

Click to play (McNeil)

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Click to play (Lomax)

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Click to play (Glenn Ohrlin)

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Click to play (Almeda Riddle)

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 09:29 PM

Q asked: "Southern Celt, can you provide the reference for the version cf. Ian & Sylvia lyrics (thread 50119) that is similar to "those of a lady back in the post-war...."? There are three by women about the Confederate Rangers in Allan but none with anywhere near similar lyrics."

The only reference for the Ian & Sylvia version (which is on the album "Northern Journey") is that it is traditional. I'll have to look up the lyric sheet on the Confederate version that I found.

To clarify, I don't know if the Confederate version is done to the same melody as the I&S Texas Rangers version since there are no chord diagrams or music with the lyrics I found. I assumed due to the similarity of some lyrics that it could be sung the same way. The lyrics I remember that are very similar include the verse which says:
Our captain did inform us, I guess he thought it right / Before we get to ???? we'll surely have to fight.

Then there's a similarity with the lines that go something like:
"I saw the Yankees/Indians coming, I heard them give a yell/My feelings at that moment no human tongue can tell."

It'll be a few days before I'll have time to search for the Confederate version.

SC

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: Artful Codger
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 04:14 AM

The Cartwright Brothers version can be heard on the CD "When I Was a Cowboy" (Volume 1). I like the way the modality keeps shifting, due to the indeterminate seventh tones.

In their version, the line is "Before we reach the station, boys,..."

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 02:55 PM

You're right Arful Codger, that's what the I&S version says too. I just didn't remember it well. (That's the story of my life recently and why I have to have "cheat sheets" to make it through a song!) :-(

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 07:55 PM

Neither of the Midies that Joe just posted sounds right to me but then I heard the song on an old Tex Ritter LP from the 1940's.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 11:56 PM

They don't sound right to me, either, Charley. I gave a link to one from Max Hunter - that one sounds like the Ian & Sylvia version that I know.
The Ian and Sylvia lyrics are very close to what I found in John Lomax, Cowboy Songs, 1916. I think that's the earliest version of the lyrics we've found.

-Joe-

Here's the tune from Glenn Ohrlin's The Hell-Bound Train. Doesn't sound like the Ian & Sylvia tune to me, but it's the closest I've found. I think if you removed the ornamentation, it would sound like the Ian & Sylvia version.

Click to play (Ohrlin)

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Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 08:02 AM

Ok, I finally got a chance to look back for the reference to the lyrics that I said were done by a lady back in the 19th century...well...I was wrong...what I remembered was the same thing that's in the digitrad db here ...although I saw it on another web site (which reproduces the Mudcat lyrics exactly down to the "collected by" data at the bottom.

SC

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: RTim
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 09:38 AM

HI all,

I just love the version by Cordelia's Dad - Rocky yet still Folk Music.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 19 - 12:44 AM

Hi!,

Anyone still interested?

The Ian and Sylvia sing was recorded a few years after the same version (music and lyrics) by the New Lost City Ramblers. The Ramblers attribute their version to (yes!) the Cartwright Bros. (Vi 30198), but also to "Mac" McClintok (Vi 21,487). They also say "see Archive of American Folk Song".

Cheers,

Steve Schachter

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 13 Feb 19 - 05:42 AM

Am I alone in thinking that the common tune for this song is related to American tunes for the song 'The Girl I Left Behind Me'? Compare, for example, recordings by Buell Kazee, Frank Jenkins and Clay Walters of 'Roving Cowboy' with, say, Spencer Moore's version of 'Girl I Left Behind'. The tune used by Texas Gladden for 'Roving Cowboy' though is different. The original query asked the question about 'Roving Cowboy's' tune having a British origin. If the tune was, originally, connected to the British song 'Girl I Left Behind Me' then this may be the connection. However, it could equally be that American tunes for 'Girl I Left Behind Me' came from 'Roving Cowboy'!

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Mar 21 - 07:27 PM

Michael Martin Murphy sings a version on his "Cowboy Songs" album. The liner notes mention that the song is from an old Irish tune. Given the model sound is similar to other older tunes. But I am still waiting to see what the experts say.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: GUEST,#
Date: 17 Mar 21 - 07:43 PM

https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197226/

Collected by Lomax in 1942. Worth a losten.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: Felipa
Date: 17 Mar 21 - 08:35 PM

Both the tune Sloan Matthews sings on the Lomax recording and the different tune that Ian and Sylvia recorded sound to me like tunes one might well hear in Ireland.

Subject: RE: Texas Rangers melody origin
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Mar 21 - 08:52 AM

Can't get the tunes given above to play, but the song was printed by Wehman at the end of the 19th century and if taken from print it's not surprising that there are lots of different tunes in use. The song has bits and pieces from more than one English broadside and the tune I hummed over in Belden from Virginia late 19th century, seemed to be related to a whole raft of British tunes. Any tune from the British Isles has very likely passed back and forth from one country to another over several centuries so yes you might well hear something like it in Ireland....and England, and Scotland, and a host of other countries. With texts it's sometimes possible to hazard a decent guess where it originated, but with tunes it's practically impossible. Relating one tune to another is a different and much more scientific process.