Saddle Tramp (Saddle Bum), The

DESCRIPTION: Singer tells of life as a "saddle bum" or "saddle tramp," riding the grub-line, moving from ranch to ranch, singing for his keep. When things get cool, he "forks his bronc" and moves on. Over winter, he stays with his Neta, and promises to be true to her
AUTHOR: Curley Fletcher
EARLIEST DATE: 1931 (Curley Fletcher, "Songs of the Sage")
KEYWORDS: rambling travel music nonballad animal horse lover hobo
FOUND IN: US(Ro)
RECORDINGS:
Harry Jackson, "The Saddle Bum" (on HJackson1)
NOTES [290 words]: The "grub line" or "chuck line" refers to the practice of offering itinerant cowboys or workers a few days' food and lodging as they passed through. - PJS
And it was controversial. In the last third of the nineteenth century, much of the American West was used as rangeland, but while many cowboys were needed in summer, the herds were allowed to roam in winter, and many of the cowboys were out of work and needed a way to survive.
Helena Huntington Smith, The War On Powder River, University of Nebraska Press, 1966, p. 110, points out that there were three ways a cowboy could get through the winter. He could hang around an empty camp and do the best he could, or he could file a homestead claim and live on it.
Or... "The third way of getting through the winter was to 'ride the grubline.' Mounted on his best horse and packing his bed and his 'forty years gathering' on another, he would visit from ranch to ranch, living by the old law of hospitality in the West. There were a few chronic 'saddle bums' and there were worse, but the average grubline rider was a decent sort who avoided staying too long in one place, carried wood and water for the cook, and was always welcomed by the bored and isolated men on the premises because he was a new face and brought news of the range. So he got through the jobless months somehow until the uncertain sun of April shown again and it was time to rehire the crew."
As ownership of cattle became concentrated in a few hands, they often tried to shut down the grubline as uneconomic (Smith, pp. 110-111), but this generally didn't work well because the cowboys needed to survive somehow. So Harry Jackson could still be singing this song long after the cattle boom and bust of the 1880s. - RBW
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File: RcSadTra

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