Cameron Hawthorn gives a poignant and quietly powerful take on ‘Cowboy Take Me Away’ originally performed by the Dixie Chicks. A few pronoun switches and this is a gloriously-gay anthem and love song, a lovely little accompaniment to the burgeoning gay romance of our cowboy story just starting to unfurl here. Wistfulness is a key component of many a cowboy’s character. A certain sort of unrequited longing is part of it too.
I said, I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly
I wanna sleep on the hard ground in the comfort of your arms
On a pillow of blue bonnets in a blanket made of stars
Oh, it sounds good to me
I said, cowboy take me away
Fly this boy as high as you can into the wild blue
Set me free, oh, I pray
Closer to heaven above and closer to you
Closer to you
As much as a cowboy might believe in the solitude and independence of his lifestyle, there are those cowboys who want nothing more than to fall in love and make another person a part of their lives. Does it go against any tried and true cowboy code? No – at least nothing that’s written down. A cowboy doesn’t like to put anything in writing (and that’s a big fork in my cowboy path). Today’s cowboys aren’t bound to such old-world traditions, which largely established themselves due to the transitory and challenging life of cowboys of the past. Love and marriage are more possible now than way back then, and are in fact fostered by society’s questionable pushing of such traditions.
I wanna walk and not run
I wanna skip and not fall
I wanna look at the horizon and not see a building standing tall
I wanna be the only one for miles and miles
Except for maybe you and your simple smile
Oh, it sounds good to me
Yes, it sounds so good to me
This winsome song sweetly describes a young man’s search for love, which he seeks in the form of a cowboy who might sweep him off his feet. Ahh, youth and romance and the idealistic dreams of anyone who’s ever fallen in love in this mad world. In the beginning there is frenzied, tormented hope and promise, ever in danger of not being more than a passing moment, and if the object of one’s affection doesn’t quite feel the same, well, that hurts in a way most of us of a certain age have all but forgotten.
Cowboy take me away
Fly this boy as high as you can into the wild blue
Set me free, oh, I pray
Closer to heaven above and closer to you
Closer to you
Closer to you
I said, I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly
Some cowboys never forget, though – and I’m in that camp. Love has bruised and scarred in ways I don’t want to forget. Every bit of hurt and heartache was proof that the moment mattered – even when it was all in my head, it still mattered, it still felt like love, it still changed my life as if the love was real – and in that way, it was.
Cowboy take me away
Fly this boy as high as you can into the wild blue
Set me free, oh, I pray
Closer to heaven above and closer to you
Closer to you
