Our day of ‘Rodeo’ inspired music comes to a gentle close with this rendition of the old cowboy tune ‘Goodbye Old Paint’, which Copland reportedly used as part of his ‘Rodeo’ ballet cycle. On a Friday night in this Fall of the Cowboy, after a day of rain and rumination, I’m feeling a touch more contemplative than I typically do at the start of a weekend. Time for a story song to take us out of our own heads and worries…
When I take my saddle
Down from the wall
Put it on my pony
Lead him from the stall
Tie my bones to his back
Turn our faces to the West
We’ll ride the prairies we love the best
A cowboy carries a certain sadness in their countenance. Whether it’s been beaten into them after one too many falls from the saddle, or whether they’ve beaten it into themselves – cowboys being their own harshest abusers – the tears of a cowboy run like little rivers through the dirty canyons of their hollow cheeks. True cowboys don’t get to indulge in the weekend either – animals requiring constant and daily care outside the societal limitations of human time. Friday night is as Sunday morning is as Wednesday afternoon and so on and so forth. A cowboy’s days are not often his own, and we haven’t gotten into a cowboy’s nights just yet… but we will.
