Screeaming Cowboy once more

[SRoweCanoe@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/4/2002 2:44:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
timoro at hotmail.com writes:


> Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie

from mudcat.org

<<John BAuman and English cattle broker wrote in 1877 of hearing the young 
cowboys in the evening singing their favorite wail "O bury me not on the lone 
prairie,/ Where the coyotes howl and the wind blose free." Another Englander, 
this time a woman named Mary Jaques lived a while in Texas and described the 
favorite song of the Texas cowboys as "then bury me not on the lone prairie,/ 
With the turkey buzzard and the coyote/ In the narrow grave six foot by 
three." She recalled hearing the entire song sung one cold winter night by a 
cowboy tenor "with a great deal of pathos" in a minor key. Not too long 
afterward the singer was killed by lightning. Jaques' writing was published 
in 1894 but I don't know what time she was in Texas. The publication of the 
William Jossey version in 1907 was described above. Likewise the Annie Laurie 
Ellis version in JAF in 1901. Neither had the familiar tune. Another printing 
of the song was in 1905 as part of "Folk Songs of the West and South" 
harmonized by Arthur Farwell. The title here was "The Lone Prairie" and 
contained the first line "O bury me out on the lone prairie" with a footnote 
saying that in some version "out" is "not". The song appeared in the first 
edition of John Lomax's "Cowboy Songs" in 1910 with lyrics paraphrasing "The 
Ocean Burial" Lomax called it "The Dying Cowboy". Again the tune is not the 
most familiar one. The Thorp publication and claim of attribution is 
desecribed above. J Frank Dobie (1927, Ballds and Songs of the Frontier Folk) 
disputed Thorp and said there was an unmarked grave near Brady, Texas that 
locals said belonged to the cowboy that wrote the song. Dobie himself 
believed the true author would never be known. A source told Vance Randolph 
that the song was "made up" by Venice and Sam Gentry who herded cattle in 
Texas in the 1870's.    >>


Steven Rowe
SRoweCanoe at aol.com

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