Hell in Texas

DESCRIPTION: The Devil, bored with Hell, decides it's time to expand the franchise. The sandiest place available is Texas; the Devil acquires a lease from God after negotiating the water rights. The Devil adds tarantulas, cacti, etc. and opens for business
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (Lomax)
KEYWORDS: Devil humorous Hell
FOUND IN: US(So,SW)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Randolph 196, "Hell and Texas" (1 text, 1 tune)
HIgh, pp. 41-42, "Hell & Texas Song" (1 text)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 397-399, "Hell in Texas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Thorp/Logsdon-SongsOfTheCowboys, pp. 77-79, "Hell in Texas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife/Fife-CowboyAndWesternSongs 27, "Hell in Texas" (3 texts -- one each for Texas, Arizona (this one properly filing with "Arizona") and Alaska, 1 tune)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, pp. 523-524, "Hell in Texas" (1 text)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, pp. 681-683, "Alaska, or Hell of the Yukon" (1 text, the Fife's Alaska version)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 12-13, "Hell in Texas" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, HELLTEXS*
ADDITIONAL: Hal Cannon, editor, _Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering_, Giles M. Smith, 1985, pp. 55-56, "Hell in Texas" (1 text)
Roud #5104
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Arizona" (theme)
NOTES [64 words]: This song and "Arizona" clearly are related; one probably suggested and influenced the other. But there is no way to clearly demonstrate which came earlier, so I list them separately.
Thorp says he found five versions of this, with at least three different authors listed. Clearly there was a lot of rewriting along the way, He thinks the original was "The Birth of New Mexico." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: R196

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