Category Archives: Music

Willie Nelson gets some help from Orville Peck on this rendition of ‘Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other’ which was originally written by Ned Sublette way back in 1981 (yeah, this cowboy was alive then by a few years). It gained notoriety when Willie Nelson first covered it in 2006, followed by this duet with Orville Peck in 2024. Today it finds a proper place in the pantheon of cowboy songs we’re enjoying for the fall of 2026. A good song transcends time, bringing the listener along for every iteration and every generation. This one sets up the juxtaposition of the country western motif with the existence of gay cowboys – because when my biased mind used to think of cowboys, it hasn’t always been with the open acceptance we’ve been attributing to them here. My cowboy world is strikingly different from reality in so many elements, and it posits a new view and a new characterization, based on previous pockets of defiance, which is the very essence of a true cowboy.

Well, there’s many a strange impulse out on the plains of West Texas
There’s many a young boy who feels things he can’t comprehend
And a small town don’t like it when somebody falls between the sexes
No, a small town don’t like it when a cowboy has feelings for men

And I believe to my soul that inside every man there’s the feminine
And inside every lady there’s a deep manly voice, loud and clear
And a cowboy may brag about things that he’s done with his women
But the ones who brag loudest are the ones that are most likely queer

While the cowboy world of the Old West may at first glance seem inhospitable and impossible for a gay cowboy to make his way, there is a hidden history of people who had been ostracized as different who lived as they were – people of color seeking to escape social exclusion of other areas (particularly after the Civil War – and it’s notable that around that time one in four cowboys was black or Latino), trans people who sought the freedom of the frontier communities (as seen in Peter Boag’s book ‘Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past’) and cowboys who lived together, forming bonds of family and friendship and sometimes even love. The latter weren’t using ‘gay’ to describe their lifestyle or their actions – as action was it was all about. Many considered the act of two men living together and getting it on just that: an action not indicative of any defined sexuality. It was a way of living that lacked labels and somehow allowed for greater difference than the boxes we want to assign people today. Not that there’s anything wrong with labels or letters or anything that helps people understand each other better.

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?
There’s many a cowboy who don’t understand
The way that he feels for his brother
And inside every cowboy, there’s a lady that’d love to slip out

I find it fascinating that so many so-called ‘fringe’ elements of society came together under the cowboy guise, and then were buried under years of white-washing and homophobic history-revision. We were there, we were part of that world, yet the rest of society has worked to erase us from that space. A true cowboy is welcoming and open to all people, largely living to let live, and not bothering with what people wanted to do at the end of the day. That’s my definition of a cowboy. It’s also the driving impetus of this fall, and if it turns the Old West on its head, maybe it’s time for a different sort of revision – one that puts the diversity and open-minded acceptance of a dream utopia back into the cowboy realm where it’s always belonged.

And there’s always somebody who says what the others just whisper
And mostly that someone’s the first one to get shot down dead
So when you talk to a cowboy don’t treat him like he was a sister
You can’t fuck with a lady that’s sleepin’ in each cowboy’s head

While it’s nice to dream of such a scenario and work towards such a promise, the reality is much different, and often much more tragic. But I’m here for the fight, I’m here for the battle, I’m here for the war. And if I want to wear a cowboy hat and sing Willie Nelson tunes and maybe even learn a line dance or two (ok maybe not that) then let us have a cowboy’s life.

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?
There’s many a cowboy who don’t understand
The way that he feels for his brother
And inside every lady, there’s a cowboy who’d love to come out
And inside every cowboy, there’s a lady that’d love to slip out

Walking after midnight is not solely the province or habit of cowboys or country-western folk; many nights of my childhood were spent walking at the midnight hour, back when kids could walk anytime and anyplace. There’s something magical about the cloak of darkness that gives a person ease, and something wondrous about getting on your own two feet and getting away. A cowboy’s life is movement – and most movement begins with the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other.

I go out walkin’ after midnight
Out in the moonlight
Just like we used to do
I’m always walkin’ after midnight
Searchin’ for you

I walk for miles along the highway
Well, that’s just my way
Of sayin’, “I love you”
I’m always walkin’ after midnight
Searchin’ for you

Riding his horse or walking by his lonesome, a cowboy finds ample time to soak in his solitude. In some respects that’s the most powerful way I connect to the cowboy’s conduct – they have an affinity with solitude that I’ve always shared. Most people just aren’t comfortable for long stretches on their own; some can’t handle a few minutes without reaching out to their phone or other method of communicating with others. They’ve lost the ability to exist alone, which is very sad, as in the end we only have ourselves, and to not enjoy one’s own company is a hell I can’t imagine. It’s a little at odds with the music here, which pines for companionship and rails against loneliness. Loneliness is rarely an affliction of a proper cowboy – at least not loneliness in the usual sense.

I stop to see a weepin’ willow
Cryin’ on his pillow
Maybe he’s cryin’ for me
And as the skies turn gloomy
Night winds whisper to me
I’m lonesome as I can be

Even when he doesn’t have his horse, a cowboy has his walk. Only God or whatever entity you believe in can take that away. The ability to get from one place to another, to move your entire environment and change your atmosphere absolutely – it’s a powerful thing most of us forget or neglect or never even realize. The cowboy remembers. The cowboy knows. The cowboy walks.

I go out walkin’ after midnight
Out in the starlight
Just hopin’ you may be
Somewhere a-walkin’ after midnight
Searchin’ for me

When I first felt the pull of the cowboy motif for this fall’s atmosphere, I also felt decades of pushing against such a motif. As a gay man, and in these recent years of divisive strife especially, I didn’t always feel the country-western vibe was particularly welcoming. A big part of the cowboy co-opting at work this season is to turn such notions on their head – celebrating the gay cowboy lifestyle – a gorgeous amalgamation of country-western images with an open-minded acceptance and celebration of all people. Gay cowboy songs have always existed if you know how to listen and what to hear – and lately some are gloriously blatant and deliciously overt – as in this haunting and poignant ‘Two Cowboy Waltz’ by Mark Weigle.

Four cowboy boots
Gliding on air
Turning and turning
While I stand and stare
At the two cowboy waltz
At the two cowboy waltz

Grace, and dignity
So hard to come by
That I stand in rapture
As I watch them dance by
In the two cowboy waltz
The two cowboy waltz

This also sets the stage for our cowboy story, set to begin posting tomorrow. It’s a sort of love story – the way any cowboy story is a sort of love story – with something sweet, something ruinous, and something lonesome. Tale as old as time and all that good stuff, given a cowboy edge and the kind of grit that never quite detracts from its beauty.

With shiny pearl buttons
In faded blue jeans
He’ll turn to me
Tonight in my dreams
And we’ll dance

Don’t think this will be a sweet ride the whole way through – a cowboy’s life is rarely so easy and linear. They like the twists and turns, else they wouldn’t give up so much for so seemingly little. And a story of happily ever after is only worth anything if there is adversity or tragedy coming beforehand to give it flavor and spice and contrast.

The two cowboy waltz
The two cowboy waltz

He’ll take my hand
Look into my eyes
Then stetson to stetson
Together we’ll fly

For now, though, let’s have a moment of romantic abandon – in that space right before the fall, that place when it could be the thing that changes your life for the better, that makes everything fall into perfect harmony and destiny. This is what we all seek, whether we realize it or not – the moment of hope, the sort of perfection that only exists because it’s in our minds. Never again will it be this lovely – it will have different resonance, different joy, but it won’t ever be as lovely. I wish it would be. I wish it could be. And maybe that’s just my own jaded experience. Maybe this time the cowboys will live happily ever after…

The two cowboy waltz
The two cowboy waltz

“It was the kind of confidence that every cowboy needed in dealing with an intimidating bronc. Still, the quickest way for a rider to get in trouble was to take undue pride in his ability…” – Patrick Dearen

Most cowboys carry a certain hubris that is intrinsic to their soul. It’s not something necessarily negative – it simply forms that part of them that allows for such an independent way of moving through life: you have to really believe in yourself to stay true to who you are. Call it hubris, call it pride, call it confidence, call it vanity – and I’ve certainly been called all of it over this last half-century – it’s a pillar of survival for the cowboy.

I am just a cowboy, lonesome on the trail
A starry night, a campfire light
The coyote call and the howlin’ winds wail
So I’ll ride out to the old sundown

I am just a cowboy lonesome on the trail
Lord, I’m just thinking about a certain female
The nights we spent together riding on the range
Looking back it seems so strange

A real cowboy bucks against the societal restraints that make most of us cling to our day jobs in service of family or mortgage. A cowboy wants no constraints or rules or laws. A cowboy seeks freedom and a day of riding – all a meditation unto themselves. A cowboy can be a very peaceable person when left to their own devices and code. Most of us can be, I suppose.

Roll me over and turn me around
Let me keep spinning ’til I hit the ground
Roll me over and let me go
Riding in the rodeo

The cowboy’s life can be messy, and it usually is. They work hard (sometimes) and they play hard (sometimes) and through it all they keep to their cowboy code even as it shifts beneath their boots. They’re used to shifting stirrups, to the instability of the animal between their legs. They know how to follow such movement; they become such movement, as if an extension of the animal itself. When you are the movement, you can never be pinned down. It’s like trying to catch the wind.

I was took in Texas I did not know her name
Lord, all these southern girls seem the same
Down below the border in a town in Mexico
I got my job busting broncs for the rodeo

Roll me over and turn me around
Let me keep spinning ’til I hit the ground
Roll me over and let me go
Running free with the buffalo
Here I go!

Roll me over and I’ll turn around
And I’ll move my fingers
Up and down, Up and down

It’s OK amigo
Just let me go
Riding in the rodeo

It’s often hard to love a cowboy. I won’t shoot my wad this early, just hint at what’s to come, so to speak. So yes, hard to love a cowboy. Or at least hard to love a cowboy type – the person that has that cowboy essence in them. It’s a sort of restlessness, a dissatisfaction with the lots in life afforded most of us. Coupled with a sort of hubris, an essential belief in themselves that life is theirs for the taking – for the riding, for the spinning and falling, and the freedom. When a person believes in themselves, it’s very difficult for others not to believe in them too. Or so it should seem to be, to me.

Roll me over and turn me around
Let me keep spinning ’til I hit the ground
Roll me over and let me go
Riding in the rodeo

Roll me over and set me free
The cowboy’s life is the life for me

Last Sunday the weather changed. In one fell swoop, the rain had arrived in the night, and with it a cooler atmosphere by about fifteen degrees. A jarring start to a Sunday morning. When I opened the door to the back patio, I just as quickly shut it. Amazing the way a single rainy day can seemingly erase an entire summer of hot and sunny days – as if they’d never happened, as if the spring had returned and we had a chance to start again – as if the dead body of summer didn’t lay between us.

It’s been a while, my friend
Counting days don’t seem to end
I haven’t spoken to my poor mom since I can’t remember when
It’s hard when someone knows just where you’ve been

Orville Peck’s new album ‘Mule’ came out after the concept and plan for this fall’s theme was in place, so I can’t take or give credit for the timing, but it works, and the album is a masterpiece. This cut is especially fitting, titled ‘The Fall’ and perfectly placed to help kick off this season of cowboy grit and drama. A contemplative yearning bleeds across the melody and lyrics – it’s the feeling of fall – a lonesome sort of feeling. This won’t be the last of that phrase or feeling. Fall can crush the soul that way. Fall will crush the soul.

So come around, my dear
Take a rest right here
And I will share your pain, I’ve seen it all
Hot summer nights is where we started
But it’s been cold since when we parted
You used to tell me we’d get through it all
We were flying, how could we have seen the fall?

It’s hard to let go of some summers. Others past relatively uneventfully, forgotten in a cruel way – because summer should never be forgotten. Still others can’t pass quickly enough. This was one of those latter ones – not for any truly traumatic way, just for the way I hid away from its heat and sun and revelation. I ran away from the joy and the moment – spending my final days as a 50-year-old sheltered from the world and the wide sky. Not exactly sure why. Fear of letting go, perhaps.

Still the Hudson flows
Guess that’s just the way it goes
I’ve been checkin’ on the leaves to see if they’ve turned brown and gold
Who made time so slow?

I watch the sun come up
Strangers fill my cup
Empty out the bag, it’s making noise

Run down my heart with many lovers
Hide my head under the covers
The wind is blowing, hear it at the wall
Yeah, all that time we were just laughing through the fall

Fall signals ambivalence now – a mixed bag of feelings and emotions, memories and tricky rabbit holes that lead into the past, only to fuck with the future. Greeting it with a hesitant wariness, the way I’m suspicious of most things in the world now, I implore myself to leave past and future alone, and strive to focus solely on the present. Mindfulness is the surest way of getting through a day as well as a season.

And don’t you ask me how I’ve been
I wore that chain every day, as if it were a ring
And it hurt so bad to see you, so please next time keep walking
As for the rest of you, please don’t ask me to sing

Fall used to mean a new beginning – even more than spring for reasons not fully understood by my small brain. It was the season that marked a resurgence in order and structure after the carefree and loose summer – for a Virgo that was heaven. As much as I hated returning to school, I’ve always relished the opportunity for a new wardrobe, a new image, a new era, a new project. Fall’s cooler nights and crisp mornings were the jolt of inspiration to get my shit in order again if I’d let things fall by the wayside in the summer heat. Now it feels different: the preamble to winter. There is sorrow and an element of danger present – will it be the winter of the seasonal year, or the winter of a lifetime? After the age of fifty, any fall could be the last – and there are fewer falls ahead of me than behind me. I can’t look away from that anymore.

So don’t look down
No, you won’t see the ground
Just a life that passes by you while you float

When a cowboy grows old, anything can happen. Truth is, many cowboys don’t get the chance to grow old – and for those that do, it always feels a bit like a surprise. A nasty, cruel, dangerous surprise – the way a prairie dog hole can trip up a horse, landing rider and animal suddenly on the ground. Hopefully the rider remains on top, because if he or she doesn’t, few survive being beneath a horse without injury or death.

Hot summer nights is where we started
But it’s been cold since when we parted
At The Bowery’s where I heard the angels call
I thought it was the end, then I recalled the fall
I thought it was goodbye, then I recalled the fall.

“Try it on me!” ~ Whitney Houston to Mariah Carey, or Mariah Carey to Whitney Houston, at the MTV Video Music Awards circa mid to late 90’s

Never having been a fan of country music, my interest in the country western vibe that has taken over this website and this autumn may seem at odds with who I am, yet if you dig deeper into what makes a cowboy a cowboy – the internal machinations and make-up of the rebellious fringe-dweller who refuses to conform to what society wants – it’s actually a good fit. Still, I understand if this feels like just another pose – as I have lived most of my life as a provocative poseur. It’s too late to change, and too late to apologize. The die of the chameleon has been cast.

Well I don’t wanna be a big star and I don’t need to drive a new car

Well I don’t wanna wear no new clothes and you won’t catch me looking down my nose

Don’t you tell me I don’t belong out here…

I’m a punk rock spy in the house of honky tonk heaven

Yeah I’m a punk rock spy in the house of honky tonk heaven

I got a punk rock heart but the punk and the honky go together

Another mask, another guise, another persona to inhabit for a spell to work out whatever kinks remain, exorcizing demons past and present and possibly future, and if the cowboy is the conduit, I’m more than ready to saddle up. In a way, this is how art operates when used as a vehicle to find something or feel something or process something. Will I be bucking off broncos or herding cattle or stringing barbed-wire fences anytime soon? Of course not. Will I distract and dazzle in cowboy cosplay while buying myself some therapy and creative catharsis? Absolutely. And can I relate to someone who has historically been an outsider, a rebel, a person hellbent on living life on their own terms in defiance of social constraints and mores? Fuck yeah. 

The writer and performer of this song – Charlie Overbey – expresses what it’s like to straddle genres – punk, country, honky tonk, blues, and rock – while not being defined or labelled as any single one of them. A standard flummoxed reaction often results when someone falls into uncharted territory, or somewhere in between or in several different categories. Humans want so much to organize things and understand others in the most basic of terms, when we are all too complex and nuanced and different to really conform to any single set of standards or descriptions. There are always exceptions, always footnotes, always asterisks and ‘See also’s and all sorts of annotations. 

And those of us who dare to change, or evolve, or become something different from what people assumed us to be – well, we are viewed as suspect, as less than authentic, as a shape-shifting creature of mythology – not to be trusted or counted on or safe as someone they have supposedly figured out. We make others uncomfortable because our certainty is in our evolution. But I digress… This is the fall of the cowboy, not the chameleon – and cowboys are nothing if not sure of themselves. 

‘If you remember one thing from my story let it be this: in life – and in love – nobody falls harder than a cowboy.’

Never thought I’d be embracing the Country-Western vibe that is set to embody this fall season of ALANILAGAN.com, but sometimes we become that which we resist the most. There’s a lesson hidden somewhere here, a lesson that may or may not become more clear as the season progresses – for now, I’m learning what it means to be a modern-day cowboy, and at the moment it feels closer to my heart than sequins or feathers. There’s a story here too – probably several, as stories tend to beget more stories – and I’m going to take my time telling it. Fall is always longer than we think it will be. 

I spied a poor cowboy wrapped up in white linen
Wrapped up in white linen as cold as the clay
“I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy”
These words he did speak as I boldly stepped by
“Come sit down beside me and hear my sad fortune
I was shot in the breast and I know I must die.”

What is a cowboy?
A cowboy is a vision. 
A cowboy is a fashion.
A cowboy is a fusion. 
A cowboy is a herder – of cattle, of people, of thoughts, of ideas…
A cowboy is a rancher – of land, of earth, of imagined mindscapes…
A cowboy is a poker and prodder – of cows, of friends, of lovers, of strangers…
A cowboy is a dreamer – of dreams, of hopes, of tomorrows…
A cowboy gets up to ride again, no matter how many times he was rode hard and put away wet. 

Go beat the drum slowly, and play the fife lowly
Play the death march as you carry me along
Take me to the graveyard then lay the sod over me
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong

Shattering what we’ve been led to believe, the real heart of this country – America, in whatever broken sense or state we find ourselves in right now – is a fierce independence, a willingness to go it alone, the way the founders of our country broke off from England all those centuries ago – and a fierceness at odds with the current administration which wants the dumb and stupid sheep to do as they say without questioning or wondering at basic easily-discerned truths. 

The real essence of America is freedom and the right to live as authentically as we feel. Forget the flag-waving skewered views bent and misshapen to a white nationalism and Christian cult that wants nothing more than to destroy and hate anyone remotely different. The real American embraces our differences, celebrates everyone’s right to live out their lives as they so choose, and offers grace and acceptance to those in need. That dovetails with the basic tenets of a cowboy, whose philosophy has largely been to live and let live. There’s nothing more American than a cowboy – and a cowboy won’t mind any of your business so long as you don’t mind his. 

Go gather around you a crowd of young cowboys
And tell them the story of this my sad fate
Tell one and the other before you go further
To stop their wild roving before it’s too late

At his heart, a cowboy is a loner and a rebel, Pee-Wee Herman style. He sets his own beat, dances his own dance (Tequila!) and lives his own life. If he’s invited you to be part of it in any way, that’s a rare and precious gift, one that shouldn’t be squandered or scoffed at – and one that will likely not come many times in his life. And just because you’ve been included once doesn’t mean you will be again. A cowboy reserves the right to withdraw at any time, and will often do so. Being left out of their circle once you’ve been in can feel like a harsh exacting of a price you never realized existed, a bit of heartbreak you never knew you were inflicting. 

It was once in the saddle I used to go dashing
It was once in the saddle I used to go gay
First to the dramhouse and then to the cardhouse
Got shot in the breast, I am dying today

A cowboy is not sentimental; a cowboy is not without heart. 
A cowboy is a conundrum, but not a problem to be solved. 
A cowboy is his own torture. 
A cowboy is his own salvation. 
A cowboy is his own worst enemy.
A cowboy always slays his worst enemy.

The cardinal rule for all cowboys was simply to never fall in love. Falling in love posed the greatest threat to the existence of a cowboy. There would always be temptations to do so, but a true cowboy understands that this is their biggest choice in life – this is what makes them a cowboy – and it’s what separates them out from the others. Fierce and ferocious independence.

Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin
Get six pretty maidens to bear up my pall
Put bunches of roses all over my coffin
Put roses to deaden the clods when they fall

Go bring me a cup, a cup of cold water
To cool my parched lips, ” the cowboy said
Before I turned, the spirit had left him
And gone to its giver, the cowboy was dead

The essence of a cowboy is in his solitude. They need their alone time. They cannot afford to get attached. They cannot become co-dependent. Solitude is integral to how they make their way in the world. It is the key to their survival, and to fall in love would be to risk that essential solitude. 

To fall in love would be deadly to a cowboy. 

That’s worth a pause to consider. 

A cowboy is an attitude.
A cowboy is a rebel.
A cowboy is a creature beholden only to himself. 
A cowboy makes his own rules and abides only to the cowboy code. 
A cowboy makes his own way while longing for something he knows he will never find – and that doesn’t mean he won’t try. 

We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly
And bitterly wept as we bore him along
For we all loved our cowboy, so brave, young, and handsome
We all loved our cowboy although he’d done wrong

All this being said, sometimes life doesn’t always follow the tried and true path that we all think we know so well. And some cowboys did fall, and made perfectly happy situations for themselves by living with someone else and not going it completely alone, but they were never quite full-fledged cowboys after that, were they? More often, some fell and found themselves in perfectly unhappy situations, cowboys being largely disagreeable to bending for others. But if there’s one thing you take away from this entire fall of the cowboy, I ask that you remember this, especially when you are feeling ungenerous, unkind or unmerciful in your estimation of anyone else’s unhappy ending: in life – and in love – no one falls harder than a cowboy. 

The FALL of the COWBOY: Autumn 2026 at ALANILAGAN.com