Pecos Punchers, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer describes his appearance ("I wear the high heels, also the white hat"), talks of the work of a cowboy, and lists the outfits he worked for. He decides to "go east like Wild Bill and there play the tough" -- but keep his saddle for use hereafter
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Craddock, Publications of the Texas Folklore Society, according to Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest)
KEYWORDS: cowboy work
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Fife/Fife-CowboyAndWesternSongs 112, "The Pecos Punchers" (1 text)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 332-333, "Yellowstone Flat" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #8047
NOTES [111 words]: This posed a real conundrum for me. The Fife/Fife and Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest versions possess too many common lines to be independent songs; they have too many divergences for the differences to be purely the result of the folk process. One version or the other has unquestionably been rewritten. Properly they should be split. But then the Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest version would be functionally split off and would arguably lose its Roud number. Given the relative rarity of the song, I decided to keep them together -- particularly since I have not examined all the versions to try to figure out which is the rewrite. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: FCW112

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