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Description
I've been wanting to do a cowboy ballad for a long time, and every time that somebody else out here posted one i'd think man i have to get to writing a cowboy song. Anyway i'm a boots and hats kind of dude and as the song says my heroes have always been cowboys but i'm a genre (not gender) bending guy so this is what a cowoby tune sounds like to me - like if Tex Ritter had been produced by Quincy Jones...
the lyrics are fairly accurate. some definitions - a cinch ring running iron - rustlers used to use their cinch rings (ring on the girth of a saddle) as branding irons, so if you caught somebody with a blackened cinch ring chances are you'd hang them. wet stock - cattle stolen from mexican ranches. Texans and New Mexicans used to run across the border to "borrow" cattle and they called those beeves wet stock. boss of the plains - the first felt "cowboy" hat that most people would recognize. navy and army colts - ball and cap pistols that were the precursor to the colt peacemaker (the pistol all the cowboys use in the movies). "Seen the elephant" - a mid 1800's phrase meaning to have been involved in some adventure, maybe seen action in the civil war or been up the chisholm trail.
the lyrics are fairly accurate. some definitions - a cinch ring running iron - rustlers used to use their cinch rings (ring on the girth of a saddle) as branding irons, so if you caught somebody with a blackened cinch ring chances are you'd hang them. wet stock - cattle stolen from mexican ranches. Texans and New Mexicans used to run across the border to "borrow" cattle and they called those beeves wet stock. boss of the plains - the first felt "cowboy" hat that most people would recognize. navy and army colts - ball and cap pistols that were the precursor to the colt peacemaker (the pistol all the cowboys use in the movies). "Seen the elephant" - a mid 1800's phrase meaning to have been involved in some adventure, maybe seen action in the civil war or been up the chisholm trail.
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Lyrics
I met you on the your daddy's porch
wearing britches like a man
smiling from beneath a boss of the plains
spitting in a coffee can
i knew i couldn't have you
you weren't a thing to give away
but when you asked me if i'd seen the elephant
i told you yes
so saddle up you said
i was a quick hearted boy
you were a fiddle foot girl
we happened on each other
on our way to see the world
you had a pair of navy colts
i had an army dragoon
we rode hard with our reigns in our teeth
beneath
the bandit's quarter moon
made camp on cienega creek
where the cowboys didn't ride
built a herd of wet stock longhorn beeves
with a cinch ring running iron
i knew i couldn't have you
you weren't a thing to give away
but when you asked if i was one to ride the river with
i told you yes
so saddle up you said
chorus
i watched you ride away
with some ranchero from nogales
as i spit down at the boots
of those porfirino federales
wearing britches like a man
smiling from beneath a boss of the plains
spitting in a coffee can
i knew i couldn't have you
you weren't a thing to give away
but when you asked me if i'd seen the elephant
i told you yes
so saddle up you said
i was a quick hearted boy
you were a fiddle foot girl
we happened on each other
on our way to see the world
you had a pair of navy colts
i had an army dragoon
we rode hard with our reigns in our teeth
beneath
the bandit's quarter moon
made camp on cienega creek
where the cowboys didn't ride
built a herd of wet stock longhorn beeves
with a cinch ring running iron
i knew i couldn't have you
you weren't a thing to give away
but when you asked if i was one to ride the river with
i told you yes
so saddle up you said
chorus
i watched you ride away
with some ranchero from nogales
as i spit down at the boots
of those porfirino federales
PaddyNavinCaryatid
.... 'n' funky. Man the influence diminutive stack heeled Minneapolitan is evident here again. Love that rhythm and that "chikka chikka" guitar.
Great lyrics and lovely synth stabs. The glossary was exceptionally useful too!
All in all top work from MJ's funkiest redneck.
Downloaded, iPodded.