Back in the day, when I was growing up, all children knew these songs and more; we heard them on T.V. shows, on the radio, and in the fifth grade, when EVERY single subject had to do with America, we had these and many, many, more in music class and some, were played for us ( records ), when they fit some part of history that we were leaning about.
Sadly, even the most "elite" schools of today, don't expose children to this ALL AMERICAN stuff.
Cool Water--The Sons of the Pioneers (1941)
Dusty Skies--Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys (1941)
--Noel Parmintel, 1964
In Scouts we would hike the ridges of the Ouchitas. In the summer there is no water up there. It is a five or more mile trip down to the valley to get water and then back up the mountains. All camps but one were dry camps up on the ridges. We would muster the strength we had and sing Cool Water in the evening.
Hank Williams does the best Cool Water. And it wasn’t even released while he was alive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rLK3dfyfUo
I grew up being familiar with all of those. Heck, I also know who Pecos Bill is!☺
I learned all of these songs as a kid in the early to late 1950s. I rarely missed an episode of Roy Rogers and Trigger.
When I got old enough I learned to shoot straight and accurate and have manners like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans taught.Too bad TV doesn’t teach that today.All I see on TV these days are fascists, queers and transvestites who are creating Sodom and Gomorrah. But they cannot get closer to me than my property line a half mile away, and the TV has an off switch.
My favorite song among those listed is Tumbling Tumbleweed.
Its even a litte Shinto in there.
“Don’t fence me in,” also a good one.
THey both are here with Roy Rogers and Trigger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7xUqTHGkw8
I know 5 of the 6. I guess I can’t go on the next cattle drive.
Ghost Riders
Cool Water
Old Paint
What happens when you play an old CW record backwards?
I know them all sometimes they play a few on Sirius” Willies Roadhouse Saturday night on Ranger Doug...
You forgot the most famous one of all, Home on the Range.
Why isn’t “You Broke My Heart So I Busted Your Jaw” listed?
Out where an Injun's yer friend,
Where the vegetables are green, and you can pee right into the stream,
We're back from the shadows again
No list of songs like this would be complete without at least one from Canadian icon Ian Tyson — who stands apart from the faux “country” scene because he actually WAS a rancher in southern Alberta. He was also a rodeo rider early in his life before a serious injury ended his career and got him started in the music business.
And Johnny Cash’s “The Blizzard” is the most definitive “cowboy” song of all time.
Lots of good cowboy songs, not just those ones. I go see Riders in the Sky whenever they come near enough, always a good show.
BTW, in Back in the Saddle Again, the lyrics are “where the longhorn cattle feed on the lowly jimson weed”, not “gypsum weed”. Though I hope the cattle don’t eat jimson weed, because it’s really poisonous.
You made me think of the last song at a cousin’s funeral decades ago... Happy Trails... my little brother and I looked at each other and couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry!
Oh dang! I know every one of those songs! Glad it was not some whining bar room song.
But then, I was born on the High Plains West end of the Santa Fe trail, Cimarron Cutoff and raised on Bob Wills music. Learned to hate modern country when dad moved us to hillbilly country.