Streets of Laredo - 'Live in the Nation'??

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 06:14 PM

The "friends and relations" verse may have been borrowed from a song of that name, "My Friends and Relations."
See Dana Coolidge, "Texas Cowboys," (Dutton, 1937), a book about the period before WW1. He says he collected it from a cowboy known as Outlaw Tom. The tune generally used is "My Home in Montana," but that was applied to it by later singers. The first verse;

My friends and relations, they live in the Nations,
They know not where their cowboy has gone.
Besides their vexation and great trouble-ation
Someday they'll be sorry for what they have done.

The book was about Texans working for the Chiricahua Cattle Co. in Arizona ("the Cherrycows").
Powder River Jack Lee sang the song in the 1940s.

See Glenn Ohrlin, 1973, "The Hell-Bound Train, A Cowboy Songbook, pp. 6-7, Univ. Illinois Press.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 05:48 PM

Most of the details on this song cluster has been gone over in other threads.
There is no mention of a "nation" or similar in any of the British Isles antecedents.
The first American version, with the general theme of "Streets of Laredo," was "Tom Sherman's Barroom." No mention of a "nation" there. Stewie posted a very late version of this song, which was apparently written by F. H. Maynard, about 1876, based on a song popular with cowboys, called "The Dying Girl's Lament." See Guy Logsdon, 1989, "The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing," p. 289ff., Univ. Illinois Press.
No early version of the song has been posted here. The first verse (Austin E. and Alta S. Fife) is:

As I passed by Tom Sherman's barroom,
Tom Sherman's Barroom quite early one morn,
I spied a young cowboy all dressed in his buckskins,
All dressed in his buckskins and fit for the grave.

No mention of a "nation." There is a comprehensive analysis, including references to field recordings and manuscripts, and bibliography, in the Fife's notes to "Songs of the Cowboys," N. Howard (Jack) Thorp, 1966, pp. 148-190.
In a small booklet published at Estancia, NM, in 1908, N. Howard Thorp published his version. No mention of a "nation." The booklet is reproduced in the book referenced above ("Songs of the Cowboys," News, Print Shop). His version has not yet been posted here.
Another 1908 version (Sharlott Hall) appeared in Arizona (no "Nation").

The verse quoted by Robin, with "Nation," at the top of this thread first appeared in John A. Lomax, 1910, Cowboy Songs, p. 74-76. (The "He" in the third line appears there. The "He" is repeated in the enlarged 1938 ed.). The "nation" first appears in this text.
Just where Lomax got this text is uncertain. Many years later, he claimed to have obtained the song in Texas. In 1960 he went back to a brief late version of Tom Sherman's Barroom and used the title "The Dying Cowboy," "Folksongs of North America," 1960. No mention of the "Nation." Along with it, he published an English version of "The Sailor Cut Down in His Prime" (pp. 184-186).
Noted in a previous thread (3918) is use of the song by Owen Wister in his novel, "Lin McLean," 1898. No mention of a nation, but the song is incomplete.

"Friends" and "relations" are mentioned in the version printed in 1908 by Thorp.

"Farewell my friends, farewell my relations
My earthly career has cost me sore"
The cow-boy ceased talking, they knew he was dying
His trials on earth, forever were o'er.

Much information in thread 3918: white linen

Tom Sherman, thread 20413: Tom Sherman

Several threads on British Isles antecedents.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 04:38 PM

Quote
"Not to go too much into the background (as it all starts in Dublin in the 1790s), there's a tune/words split. "
Endquote
I think you are at the end of street not the start with that date, but
please do elaborate.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 02:32 PM

"
Anyone know the older songs in the cycle? Do any of them have similar stanzas? Might be the source of this verse.

Bob Clayton
"

Try here -- (clicky).

... and chase the links ...

Begins in Ireland in the 1790s, and is pretty well documented.

Though not all of the documentation is accurate, and there are bits missing from all the Forum threads.

... but it's a start.

Robin

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:42 PM

Should also add that there were quite a few whites in the Nation before its destruction, along with the mixed Indian-white families, some there as traders quite early (Chouteau family for one).
The song, however, suggests late 19th century and later.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:21 PM

Young Indians from the Indian "Nation" sought work throughout the cattle country; some were on drives that brought cattle to the reservations set up by the government in the Dakotas, e. g., Cheyenne Agency, S. Dak., as well as to ranches in the northwestern US and western Canada.
With education from Indian-sponsored schools at Talaquah and elsewhere in the nation, some of the young Indians were looking for opportunities elsewhere.
It wasn't long before the Nation was destroyed by the great land grab.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: JedMarum
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:01 PM

I simply mean that "Indian Nation" is not a mid-nineteenth century term. It is much more modern.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Songster Bob
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:01 PM

"My friends and relations, they live in the Nation,
They know not where their boy has gone,
I first came to Texas and hired to a ranchman
Oh, I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

Well, the internal rhyme in the first line sound more Irish than the non-rhyme in the third, so I'd say it may have been poetic license and a nebulous meaning. I'd lean towards "back east" instead of the Indian Nation, myself. For one thing, the two places aren't far enough apart for the family to be so out-of-touch (yes, I know that 19th-Century travel was very slow, so they wouldn't be in constant touch, but it seems to me that the states across the Mississippi were much farther "away" than the Indian Territories, which were athwart the cattle trails anyway).

Anyone know the older songs in the cycle? Do any of them have similar stanzas? Might be the source of this verse.

Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 12:54 PM

sorefingers:

"
The tune, like many softer strains is a Gaelic folk theme. See The Irish Harp - Google several sites.
"

Not to go too much into the background (as it all starts in Dublin in the 1790s), there's a tune/words split.

If you +really+ want tae get yir heid done in, try a google on "A Hand[s]full of Laurel". Or "The Bard of Armagh".

Robin

Subject: RE: Laredo/Tejas/La Rasa
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 12:06 PM

I agree with Jed, who lives way north of me, but I must say this ballad would have been hardly known in it's own City for some time, the vast majority of the residents nonenglish speakers... Laredo, un ciudad en Tejas yahhhhhh...

So while that ?might? have been a reason to say it by some later writer, at the time it is supposed to refer, makes nearly no sense at all.

Also - despite - the pilfering nature of many Aglophile collectors, both melody and lyric is many times ascribed to an Irish author, which is not at all suprising when you know that the latest white settlers in South Texas (1750s-1850s) were the persecuted Irish Catholics who earlier gladly accepted from the Mexican Government refuge from the British landthieves who had stolen their Nation, enslaved the people, and outlawed - under a death penatly - their Catholic religion.

The tune, like many softer strains is a Gaelic folk theme. See The Irish Harp - Google several sites.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Mark Clark
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 11:38 AM

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language includes these definitions for nation:

A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans.
The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.

I've always assumed the use of nation in the song refers to Native American lands; this seems to have been the way the word nation was used by Native Americans themselves.

I know this isn't a scholarly reply but I hope the Native American reference holds up.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 11:19 AM

1. Woody was from Claremore, Oklahoma, where they're well aware of their native heritage. At a draft board interview, Woody was asked if any one in his family had ever tried to overthrow the government by force. Dead silence when he said yes. Until he added, Sitting Bull.

2. The probable 'Yellow Rose of Texas' was from Louisiana.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: GUEST,vrdpkr
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 09:54 AM

I've always assumed it to be the nation as in Woody Guthrie;

Way don yonder in the Indian Nation
Ride my pony on the Reservation

"No one in Texas or the US would have considered using the Indian Nation in those days."

Why?

Texas was a different place before the swarm of Southern Whites changed the ethnic balance.
Remember the "Yellow Rose?" She was the "sweetest Rose OF COLOR Texas ever knew."

It doesn't mean he was Amerindian. Lots of reasons to end up in the Nations at the time. Some good, some bad. I'm especially proud of an ancestor of mine who, after taking part in the military escort to take the Choctaw from Mississippi to Oklahoma, resigned his commision, married a Choctaw girl and settled down.

Nice thread.

Harpy Trails

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: JedMarum
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 09:05 AM

No one in Texas or the US would have considered using the Indian Nation in those days.

I suspect the word use is based upon, 1)bastardization of the phrase an original writer of the verse may have used or 2) bad rhyming skill on the part of the original writer of the verse, and a reference to the "Old Country" wherever that may have been for him.

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 06:51 AM

Nigel:

Most of what you point to can be paralleled in other versions of Laredo.

"Give a wild whoop as you carry along" is prolly one of the more inept attempts to re-write (England to the States):

    Play the dead march as you carry me on
   
I'd absolutely love for the cowboy in this version to be Amerindian. As you say, there's nothing in the text that rules it out, but equally, pace what you point to, there's nothing that rules it in.

And we seem to be drifting off the Nation.

What's being kicked-up is magic, but my neck's still on the line over that term.

:-(

Robin

(Actually, "gone to its Giver" might be a crux -- I can't find this in any other version I've got on disk, but if I were betting -- betting being easier than doing serious research [g] -- I'd type this as a reflex of 19thC American Transcendentalism (Emerson and Thoreau)rather than Amerindian.

... thinking about it, the occurrence of "gone to its Giver" -- Hiawatha? -- might be an index of just +when+ this particlar re-write emerged -- post-Longfellow?

So the +reference+ in the text has to be pre-1845, but it would have been written down/put together, about fifty years later.

Make any sense?

R2

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 05:44 AM

Robin: nothing in it to say he wasn't a Native American; the only other possible positive pointers:
Before I turned, the spirit had left him
And gone to its Giver Gone to it's giver? not Christian terminology!
And give a wild whoop as you carry me along,

Take me to the green valley and lay the sod o'er me no coffin, either a pauper's burial, or a return to the land. In a later verse it mentions the graveyard rather than the 'green valley', but still no coffin.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 05:27 AM

Hrothgar:

Hadn't thought of the Indian Nation. Neat, but I don't think it fits the context.

***

Nigel:

"
Clearly "The Nation" does not refer to Texas, as 'the relations' live there, so presumably 'the boy' lived there before he 'first came to Texas'. You only come from A to B, not from A to A
"

Exactly -- so (assuming this isn't over-interpreting) the dying cowboy was born in the (then) 27 States, moved to Laredo in Texas to work for a ranchman, and got shot outside Tom Sherman's bar-room.

Dying in a small Texas town, he +seems+ to refer to the 27 States, that he'd earlier left, as "the Nation".

But I've been challenged on this by two Texans, neither of whom had ever come across this.

Currently, it's driving me out of my skull, I have to say.

Thanks, both.

Robin

*** Actually, bugger me rigid, but now I come to think of it, that actually +is+ a possibility, that the Dying Cowboy is a Native American. Would make sense ...

But one problem is that in the entire sweep of the Rake tradition, from the Buck/soldier/sailor/bad girl in England to the cowboys, linesmen, skiers, teachers, and dockers, there doesn't seem to be a Native American featured. The closest I can think of (among the parodies), is Johnny Wu, who got turned-down for Phi Beta Kapa.

A reading that would make the cowboy a Native American would fit the locution of "live in the Nation" perfectly, and add something new to the strand.

Except there's absolutely +nothing+ else in the version to suggest this -- mostly, it's standard Rake-to-Laredo stuff.

Going to have to think on this ...

Thanks again, Hrothgar.

R2

(In a kind of grisly addendum, unless someome comes up with with a better gloss on "the Nation", I'm going to go with this version having the cowboy as a Native American. If I ever get round to publishing it, I'll footnote Hrothagar.

Honest.

[g]

CP30

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 04:45 AM

"My friends and relations, they live in the Nation,
They know not where their boy has gone,
He first came to Texas and hired to a ranchman
Oh, I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

Clearly "The Nation" does not refer to Texas, as 'the relations' live there, so presumably 'the boy' lived there before he 'first came to Texas'. You only come from A to B, not from A to A

Nigel

Subject: RE: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Hrothgar
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 04:39 AM

As in "Indian Nation," being the Indian reservations up towards Oklahoma and the Panhandle??

Don't take this as a expert opinion - I might have read too many Westerns.

Subject: Laredo/Texas/the Nation
From: Robin
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 04:01 AM

In one of the Digitrad version of "The Streets of Laredo", the fifth stanza reads:

"My friends and relations, they live in the Nation,
They know not where their boy has gone,
He first came to Texas and hired to a ranchman
Oh, I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

(Line three, incidentally, should begin, "I first came to Texas ...")

(clicky)

I'd always assumed that this version of Laredo was set in Texas, before 1845 when Texas became part of the United States, and that pre-1845, Texans referred to the then US as The Nation.

But I think I may have got this horrendously wrong.

Anyone help?

Particularly with two specific questions:

How did Texans refer to the US before 1845?

Where does the phrase "live in the Nation" come from?

Robin