What's in a Song
09/12/09 NPRs Weekend Edition Saturday
Many of us can recollect a favorite bedtime story or a song sung to us on the cusp of sleep when we’re very young. That memory often vividly floods back to us.
Length: 3:42 ~
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For this week's What’s in a Song from the Western Folklife Center we hear from someone who cherishes one particular memory about the father he lost early in life. To tell his story is public radio’s favorite cowboy poet, philosopher and former large-animal veterinarian…Baxter Black.
The History of "Little Joe the Wrangler"
Jack Thorpe, along with John Lomax were the first to see the value of collecting cowboy songs. Besides producing the first book of cowboy songs in 1908 (Songs of the Cowboys) Thorpe penned the classic cowboy song, "Little Joe the Wrangler." This one song captures something essential in our idea of the American West. It is about an orphan, all alone in the wild West, who is taken in by a cowboy crew and asked to do a man's job. Though Little Joe's life ends in tragedy the song has been sung over and over in every cow camp for over a century.
We have the song featured by various artists in our online gift shop, available for purchase.
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Click here to listen to Don Edwards' version of
"Little Joe the Wrangler." |
Lyrics to Little Joe the Wrangler, by N. Howard “Jack” Thorp
His days with the remuda they're all done
It was long about last April he rode into our camp
Just a little Texas stray and all alone
It was long late in the evening when he rode into our camp
On a little old brown pony he called Shaw
In his brogan shoes and coveralls a harder lookin' kid
You never in you life have seen before
His saddle was a Sother kack built many years ago
An OK spur on one foot idly hung
With his bed roll in a cotton sack was loosely tied behind
And a canteen from the saddle horn he'd slung
Said he had to leave his home because his paw had married twice
His new maw beat him every day or two
So he saddled up old Shaw one night and lit a shuck this way
Thought he'd try and paddle now his own canoe
Said he'd try to do the best he could if we'd only give him work
Though he didn't know straight up about a cow
So the boss he cut him out a mount and kinda put him on
And we knew he liked our little stray somehow
Well he taught him how to herd the horses and learned to know 'em all
And to get 'em in by daylight if he could
And to follow the chuck wagon and to always hitch the team
And to help the carsonaro rustle wood
We had driven to Red River and the weather it was fine
We were camped down on the south side of the bend
When a Norther started blowin' we called the extra guard
Cause it took all hands to hold the cattle in
Now little Joe the wrangler was called out like the rest
Barely had the kid got to the herd
When the cattle they stampeded like a hailstorm on they flew
With all of us a ridin' for the lead
Between the streaks of lightnin' we could see a horse ahead
It was little Joe the wrangler in the lead
He was riding old Blue Rocket with a slicker o'er his head
And he's trying to check the leaders in their speed.
We finally got 'em millin' and they sort of quieted down
The extra guard back to the camp did go
But one of them was missing and we all knew at a glance
Twas our little Texas stray boy wrangler Joe
We found him there at sun up where old Blue Rocket fell
In some washout twenty feet below
Beneath his horse smashed to a pulp his spur had rung the knell
For our little Texas stray boy wrangler Joe
Little Joe the wrangler he'll wrangle never more
His days with the remuda they're all done
It was long about last April he rode into our camp
Just a little Texas stray and all alone
Special links:
http://www.donedwardsmusic.com/
http://www.baxterblack.com/
