For Leroy, my grandpa. That's him in the photograph. He was not a cowboy but a plumber. It was four years ago that he died. It was about this time of year.
Here is the first verse of the saddest song I've ever heard:
I'm going to leave old Texas now They've got no use for the long-horn cow They've plowed and fenced my cattle range And the people there are all so strange
It's Ed McCurdy singing "The Texas Song" - sometimes called "Cowboy's Lament."
It's a funny thing - this being the saddest song I've ever heard. Sure, cowboy songs are always sad (or about beans), but they're sad the way a Neil Diamond song is sad. Cowboys and Neil Diamond sing sad songs without ever becoming truly vulnerable.
Ed McCurdy wasn't even a cowboy. He was a folk singer - recording in the 50's and 60's - and later a character actor on Canadian television.
I'm not a cowboy either. I have Swedish pioneers in my bloodline, it's true, but Lord knows they weren't clog-stepping to lowland laments about "old Texas" in Minnesota's arrowhead region.
"The Texas Song" should not be the saddest song I've ever heard. But it is.
Another verse:
I'll take my horse and I'll take my rope And hit the trail upon a lope Say adios to the Alamo And turn my head toward Mexico
There it is...maybe that's it: he's packing up (the horse and the rope)...he's hitting the road (the trail actually, upon a lope) - it's a leaving song.
Like Townes van Zandt singing "You are not needed now" or Nick Drake whisper-singing "You can take the road that takes you to the stars...I can take a road that'll see me through."
But neither of those brilliantly sad songs get to be the saddest song I've ever heard. And if ever there were two truly vulnerable songwriters - its those guys.
Still, sometimes, when the Cowboy-Canadian-Character-Actor McCurdy sings "...and the people there are all so strange..." I choke up. There are no tears, but there is something like lamentation - I feel that cowboy.
If he was singing about a girl or a boy it wouldn't grab me, but he's singing about place - about not feeling at home at home.
And he's feeling defiant. The cowboy's lamentations are not words of warning - It's not "I'll leave this place," it's "I'm out of here now and forever." The place he knew has been plowed and fenced, and from now on, he'll live as if those things that mattered most never mattered a whit.
He sings:
The hard, hard ground shall be my bed And my saddle seat shall hold my head And when my ride on Earth is done I'll take my chances with the Holy One
It's a funny verse. It's a bit absurd. It's a small child in a tantrum wail: "I'm sleeping on the ground now!"
And somehow, it all ties in with his dying day: "I'm not going to sleep comfortably any more and we'll see what 'the Holy One' has to say about that when my maker I do meet."
It'd be a throw away verse if it didn't walk you right into the saddest part of this saddest of all songs.
I'll tell Saint Peter that I know A cowboy's soul ain't white as snow Yet in that far-off cattle land He sometimes acted like a man
Talk of "acting like a man" doesn't usually tug at this writer's heart strings. Acting like a man seems to me to be setting the bar a bit low (sorry fellas, but I have watched you close in a host of situations, most notably in your war-zones, and I have been less than impressed).
Still, that he is humble and only claims to have sometimes acted like a man implies a sort of "tried my best" defiance in the face of judgement that speaks to me.
Again with the defiance. I guess this is a protest song.
But the cowboy is not resisting the plowing and the fencing. It's not that kind of protest song. It's a protest of progress and it's a protest song sung puttering down a desert road with one sad and tear-swollen eye fixed on the rear-view mirror.
And somehow it all reminds me of another horse-and-rope-upon-a-lope song: Jason Molina's "Farewell Transmission":
The real truth about it is no one gets it right The real truth about it is we're all supposed to try There ain't no end to the sands I've been trying to cross The real truth about it is my kind of life's no better off If I've got the maps or if I'm lost
It occurs to me suddenly that "The Texas Song" is a goodbye song for people who hate goodbyes - people for whom having to say goodbye is a bitter swallow. "The Texas Song" is a farewell transmission - and any good goodbye song evokes our own long line of goodbyes: breakups...moves...deaths.
And goodbye is the saddest thing there is.
Here's the song (with a little visual accompaniment I stitched together):
My Trusted MOGs
Provocative and thoughtful. Grade: A
My Trusted MOGs
i'm with you...
My Trusted MOGs
First, get ready, becuase I am going on a comment bender- I haven't read your Mog in days and I have comments on almost every post.
Second, this song is incredibly sad. But I think it's sad in a man-way. I'm not sure why I think that, but I suspect that a lot of women wouldn't find this as sad as you do- am I being sexists???? Ahhhhh! In my opinion, the two saddest sonds in the world are Pancho and Lefty, as done by towns though Willie's is good too, and Angel From Montgomery as performed by its author John Prine. But the first of those two can kill me, just slay me everytime.
As always, thanks for the post!