Riders In The Sky - Tumblr Posts
Does anyone remember a Riders In The Sky (western music group) TV Christmas special? Apparently, there was more than one, but I'm after the one on my now-defunct VHS. Ms Marm and a bus full of schoolkids are stranded via a freak snowstorm at the Riders in The Sky Ranch where they are entertained by comedy sketches, a variety of songs, and some guest appearances. As a running gag, Sidemeat the cook tried and failed to cook a goose meaner and tougher than he was. Anybody know what I mean? I can't find it officially or bootlegged.
Song of the day
(do you want the history of your favorite folk song? dm me or submit an ask and I'll do a full rundown)
"The Dying Cowboy" Cisco Houston, 1952
"The Dying Cowboy " or "Cowboys Lament" is based on an old sailors poem, written by Edwin Hubbell Chapin and published in 1839, "The Ocean Burial"
Edgar Allan Poe's "Southern Literary Messenger" vol V, pp.6l5-6l6, 1839
here's an example of the traditional song put to music by Eugene Jemison in 1954
by the 1880s, the lyrics had morphed into the famous cowboy song we all know and love, but it wasn't until 1910 that it was pared with its well-known melody by John Lomax in the album, "Cowboy Songs And Other Frontier Ballads" here (recorded 1942)
by far, the most interesting thing that happened to the song is that its meaning was reversed. in 1934, Carson Robison changed the lyrics and the song and titled it "Carry Me Back to The Lone Prairie" (recorded 1941) and several other contemporary famous country artists
like Sons of the Pioneers,
Riders in the Sky,
Gene Autry,
Johnny Bond,
and Roy Rogers.
covered this song.
this more Hollywood country version of the song changed the story away from the bitter toiling of cowhand workers and towards nostalgia for the West that fit right in with other popular country music of the 40s and 50s. At the same time, the song was covered by Cisco Houston, a leftwing activist and official Union Boy, among other progressives, as a criticism of working class conditions. This song is so utterly fascinating to me and the best way to visually and auditorially explain the historical split manufactured between folk and country.