Cowboy's Soliloquy (I), The

DESCRIPTION: "All day (long) on the prairies I ride, Not even a dog to run by my side." The solitary cowboy describes his life on the prairie -- where, e.g., "My books are the brooks, my sermons the stones" (the latter teaching him "not to despise" small things).
AUTHOR: Allen McCandless? (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1885 (Kansas "Cowboy")
KEYWORDS: cowboy work loneliness
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Thorp/Logsdon-SongsOfTheCowboys, pp. 4-6, "The Biblical Cowboy" (1 text)
Larkin-SingingCowboy, pp. 131-134, "The Cowboy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife/Fife-CowboyAndWesternSongs 123, "The Cowboy's Soliloquy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ohrlin-HellBoundTrain 64, "The Cowboy #1" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 342-343, "The Cowboy, I" (1 text, 1 tune)
Saffel-CowboyPoetry, pp. 176-177, "The Cowboy" (1 text)
Tinsley-HeWasSinginThisSong, pp. 2-7, "The Cowboy" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Hal Cannon, editor, _Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering_, Giles M. Smith, 1985, p. 1, "The Cowboy's Soliloquy" (1 text)
Roud #5102
RECORDINGS:
Glenn Ohrlin, "The Cowboy" (on Ohrlin01, BackSaddle)
Carl T. Sprague, "The Cowboy" (Victor 21402, 1928; Montgomery Ward M-4783, c. 1935; on WhenIWas2)
NOTES [88 words]: Seemann, Ohrlin, and Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest all credit authorship to Allen McCandless. Seemann also lists first printing as being in the Trinidad, Colorado Daily Advertiser, 1885. [Cannon also attributes this to McCandless, and lists the 1885 printing, but says that it probably circulated before that, which makes you wonder about McCandless's authorship - RBW]
Carl T. Sprague's recording [credits] the words to John Lomax's "Cowboy Ballads" book. From oral tradition to print to aural tradition. - PJS
Last updated in version 6.6
File: FCW123

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