Spokane, Washington-
The man next door moved up here from California because he missed the snow.
Now he's out shoveling day and night just to get his car up our road which is
steep and unpaved. I suppose he got what he wanted. As for me? Well, I've said
it before-anybody with a bare spoonful of brains goes where it's warm in the
winter and cool in the summer. But getting there seems to be a problem I haven't
quite licked yet. From my window I can look down from the cliff over toward
Hangman Creek straddled by the mile-long Union Pacific trestle. Snow everywhere,
bending the pine boughs to the ground and choking the gullies that lead down
to the Burlington tracks a hundred yards from the back door. I've spent most
of the winter holed up here, committed to inactivity, sort of semihibernating,
disturbed only by occasional pangs of conscience over things which I have promised
to do but left undone. Like the notes for this album, for instance.
This collection of songs has been a long time coming. It was recorded over a
year ago and has waited only for me to crawl back into my brain and exhume some
information concerning the origin of the songs. As before, the entire design
and execution of the album are my responsibility, and any faults or shortcomings
should be referred to me. Now, I don't want to make excuses, but I should explain
that I am here involved not so much in doing music as I am in telling stories.
There are some things I want to talk about which I believe can be better said
without orchestration. I may be wrong but that's what I wanted and that's what
we have done. First of all, let me thank Tom Mitchell (guitar), Martin Grosswendt
(dobro), Doug McClaran (piano), Bill Vanaver (banjo), and both Nancy Katz and
Tom (harmony) for helping me to get through the terrifying experience of trying
to make a decent record. If anything at all turned out right it is the result
of their musicianship and advice. And of course there's Bill Schubart who, more
than just running the machine, gave me the freedom to do anything I wanted,
while making available to me the full breadth of his professional knowledge
and experience, and for which "thanks" is much too restrained a word.
The cover, like that of my last album, was done by Hudson Armstrong. It is made
up of caricatures of an assortment of habitues, bitues, and sons-of-bitches
who populate Saratoga Springs, New York, although the bar represented is in
Arizona. Hudson is a great artist and bartender who has achieved a well-deserved
reputation as a sort of hippie Norman Rockwell. (Sorry Hud.)
As for the songs, well, I've tried to do my best to describe where they come
from in the enclosed notes. I have no references here and have had to rely on
memory for spellings, names, dates and places. So if inaccuracies do occur,
that's the reason. I was always lousy at research anyway.
-U. Utah Phillips
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The Telling Takes Me Home
Once there was a kingdom, Deseret, built in the tops of the mountains and surrounded
by largely unexplored wilderness. The Kingdom of God encompassed vast wealth
in water, land and minerals, and the children of Zion labored patiently to make
the desert blossom as the rose. The faith upon which the kingdom was built emerged
from that fit of religious madness which, in the early 1800s, turned unlettered
farmers into prophets and visionaries overnight. They in turn led the faithful
out of that larger madness in which prophecy succumbs to politics and prophets
to assassination. The frontier was real then and all beyond it unknown and mysterious
save for the stories of a handful of wanderers who had journeyed through the
wilderness and returned. In 1847, their prophet murdered and their city in ashes,
the Mormon pioneers crossed that wilderness, placing between them and their
enemies the high mountains of the West. The building of Deseret is not a new
story but probably as old as the migrations of man. Perhaps Deseret's counterparts
can be found in the Indus Valley or in the Land Between the Rivers where mud
and time swallowed the city states of Sumer.
Today, the kingdom exists only in shadow. A series of unavoidable mistakes over
the past century have drawn this small madness back into the larger, and the
fanatic's dream has become merely another submerged in the rowdy clamor of other
men's dreams. In 1896 the Utah Territory became a state, from which date we
number the years of its gradual decline into anonymity.
A romantic notion, I suppose, for someone who shares neither the faith nor the
history of the Saints. In fact I have spent much of my adult life opposed to
the theocratic policies of those who control the economic and political life
of Utah. But I must say that the Mormons are splendid adversaries, shrewd, intelligent,
and adept in even the most subtle abuses of power. I am reminded here of Jomo
Kenyatta's introduction to his memoir in which he congratulates his enemies
on being so uncompromising and thanks them for inspiring the strength with which
they were eventually overcome. Not that I have any real intention or, indeed,
desire to bring down the Temple, but I am grateful in having had the opportunity
to whet my own natural combativeness against so hard a stone.
I have been away from Utah and "out in the world" now for five years,
having barely avoided a series of public and private disasters which are of
interest to me alone. By "out in the world" I mean to say that, looking
back, growing up in Utah was like growing up in a sort of vacuum. Utah does
have a separate culture and a unique historical background which continues to
affect the lives of its citizens in quite unusual ways. The twenty years I spent
there had me pretty well convinced that Utah was typical of the rest of the
country, which, I later discovered, it is not. When the Tourist and Publicity
Department advertise in national magazines the delights of a visit to "The
Different World of Utah" believe me, they are not just playing with words.
Still, in spite of its differences (which Boston Athenians may incorrectly define
as dullness and provincialism), I carry with me a fondness for the place and
still entertain thoughts of returning, especially considering that being "out
in the world" is not all that it's cracked up to be. And occasionally I
afford myself a moment of fantasy in which Deseret, the Kingdom of God, still
rules the tops of the mountains, safe and secure from the 20th century, the
positive benefits of which continue to elude me.
I mentioned earlier that the wealth of Zion was to be found in its water, land,
and the industry of its people. Today, two-thirds of the land in Utah is owned,
in trust, by the Federal government which lotteries it away to private developers
just as it does the oil shale in the Uintah Basin. Our rivers are now interstate
waterways under the control of Congress, which is more responsive to the water
needs of states having large congressional delegations. Utah has only two congressmen.
The average annual income of our citizens is 5% below the national average,
while since we produce only a fraction of what we consume, the cost of living
is somewhat higher. In short, Utah is a poor state in the midst of tremendous
wealth. I sometimes wonder how it would be if that wealth had remained with
the Kingdom to be used in the proliferation of those examples of co-operative
ownership and communal living which were the original Mormon experiment. Suffice
it to say that there was a Kingdom once and, though vanished, it has left its
mark on me. Legend, lore, history, events common and extraordinary flow through
the mind, rumble, disturb dreams, confuse and enlighten and at length combine
(hopefully) into tales and songs. This collection is only a series of small
histories concerning both the recent and less recent past. They emerge from
a portion of my mind separate from that other mind which seems concerned mainly
with trains, bums and the politics of labor. I admit without reluctance that
there is a part of me that must always live out here wherever my temporal abode
may be. Perhaps these histories will serve to acquaint you with some things
about the West which you have not known. My purpose in telling them, however,
is more simple than that. The telling takes me home.
The Goodnight-Loving Trail
The Good night-Loving Trail is a beautiful name for
what to some may seem a forlorn and desolate piece of territory. As for myself,
I prefer the desert. I have traveled north along the Hudson River in the spring
and been overwhelmed by the profusion of new life which flourishes everywhere
until the senses are deadened to it and finally it passes by unnoticed. In the
desert, life is more scarce-a Sego lily here, an Indian paint brush over there,
always commanding attention. In the midst of such vast emptiness, small things
take on importance. Walk through any part of a desert and you will find yourself
bending over to examine some small plant, insect or pebble which is made extraordinary
simply by being there.
Such is the territory through which the Good night-Loving Trail passed on its
way from El Paso to Denver in the early days of the cattle trade. The trail
was named for two well-respected cattle men of the time, Charles Goodnight,
for whom the "chuck wagon" is named, and Oliver Loving. The great
herds moving from the ranches of the Southwest up to the railroad in Denver
were driven by crews of about a dozen men. Out in front were the point riders;
to either side, swing and flank riders; while those bringing up the rear rode
"drag". A wrangler handled the horses that moved with the herd while
the trail boss managed the whole operation. The last and most important member
of the crew was the cook or "old woman" as he was sometimes called.
Back then the same mistaken notion prevailed as it does today, that cooking
is woman's work. The life of a working cowboy was and continues to be one of
hardship. After twenty or more years in the saddle a man's insides can get so
turned around that he can't do the job anymore, so he winds up on the chuck
gang. In the old days there were no pension plans or Social Security and a man
still had to eat. In their younger days these old cooks used to ride into town
with the rest of the boys and hoo-raw. Then at first light they would roll into
camp drunk, singing and dragging their calico and the "old woman"
would be there with a pot of black coffee to sober them up for another day's
work. But many an old cowboy has found himself left behind at the fire when
everyone else rode into town. He became the one who made up the coffee, handled
the bed rolls, doctored saddle sores and chilblains with old Indian cures and
generally had to put up with the whines and complaints of all the rest. I suppose
they were a sad lot, and yet many a working cowboy would not think of signing
on to a trail drive until he had sampled the cooking. As I found out in the
army (the old Brown Shoe Army), good food makes up for a lot.
Old Dolores
To the north of Salt Lake City, along the old Union Pacific road bed, there
are the remains of Chinese settlements built when the railroad came through.
I still have a little spice box excavated from the trash heap of one of these.
Over to the west, in the Oquirrh Mountains, you can find mining towns abandoned
seventy years ago either because they burned down or the ore played out. To
the southwest the story is the same: cow towns that grew up along the cattle
trails boomed for a few years and then for one reason or another became obsolete.
Stand in the main street of one of these - Mercur, Ophir, Frisco or Buckskin
Joe - and you can almost hear in the wind moving through sage piled against
an old stable wall the restless stirring of horses and the sound of conversation
batting back and forth between old timers taking the afternoon sun on benches
out front. LaFontaine once wrote, "Time passes, time passes-ah, no Madame,
it is not time who passes but we who pass." Well, there's nothing like
a good ghost town to put you in your place.
The song "Old Dolores" was taught to me by Judy Collins in 1960. She
said that it came from Samuel Scoggins in Colorado. I have since learned that
it was penned by James Grafton Rogers of Denver. Peg Hayden, a horse trader
for many years in that part of the country, sent me a note about the song which
says: "James Grafton Rogers was a prominent Colorado lawyer, scholar, educator
and historian. Born in Denver in 1883, he died in '69 or '70. 1 talked this
morning to his son, Ranger Rogers, also a lawyer, who was executor of his father's
estate and so went through all his personal papers. According to Ranger, his
father wrote 'Old Dolores' after visiting a little town of that name that was
located on the back side of Sandia Mountain, which
is in between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The music was kind of organized from
an old folk song by Mr. George Fraser who was a clerk under Judge Foster Symes
(whom I knew) in the U.S. Court in Denver."
John D. Lee
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) was founded by Joseph
Smith subsequent to the translation of a set of golden plates. These plates
had been revealed to him by the angel Moroni after they had been buried for
some hundreds of years in the hill, Cummorah, in what is now western New York
State. The plates (now the Book of Mormon) purported to be the history of the
Nephite and Lamanite civilizations, which flourished in North America before
the time of Christ. This history is said to be the work of the Nephite general
Mormon, who set it down as the record of a people who were in the last throes
of self-extermination.
As the Mormon Church grew, it moved west from New York, first to Kirtland, Ohio,
and then on to Missouri, in the vicinity of Independence, where revelation indicated
the second coming of Christ was to take place. As the Mormons acquired land
and power, resentment grew among local residents, fanned by certain inflammatory
statements made by the governor of Missouri. Mormon farms were burned and many
lives lost. One especially bad massacre took place at Haun's Mill for which
the Mormons retaliated at the battle of Crooked River, fought by a band of Mormon
vigilantes called the Danites under the leadership of Samson Avard.
The Mormons moved again, this time to Illinois, where they founded the city
of Nauvoo, at its peak the largest city in the state. Once again the Mormons
set about buying land and entering local commerce. Eventually their power became
so great that it began to be openly resisted. In letters to the prophet Joseph
Smith, Governor Ford indicated that he could not guarantee the safety of the
Mormons in Illinois and invited them to move further west into unorganized territory,
there to found a kingdom or republic, whatever they liked. Such a move had already
been considered by the Prophet and the Council of the Twelve who had consulted
with Jim Bridger and others about finding a good location in the Western mountains.
But the pressure of fast-moving events prevented a peaceful exodus. Joseph Smith
was jailed, along with his brother, in Carthage, where both were assassinated.
The city of Nauvoo was put to the torch and the Mormons in full flight crossed
the ice of the Platte River into the Indian reservation. It was winter and many
Mormons died of cold and starvation. The decision was made to move west, and
an advance party under Brigham Young, the new president of the Church, set out
to find a new home for the Saints. At length, under the guidance of Jim Bridger,
the Mormons arrived in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Others followed and
Deseret was born, the Kingdom of God in the tops of the mountains.
Several years later a party of Missourians, the Fancher Party, passed through
the territory on their way to the gold fields in California. Several Mormons
thought that they recognized among the Fanchers some who had been at Haun's
Mill back in Missouri. The word went out to give these people no change of horse
or food and to get them out as fast as possible. The Fancher Party, in desperation,
found it necessary to depredate farms and steal what they needed for survival.
When the party arrived in the southwestern part of the territory the situation
had become so aggravated that the Mormons engaged the Fanchers in open combat
at a place called Mountain Meadows near Cedar City. John D. Lee, a pioneer settler
in those parts, attempted to stop the fighting. Lee was Brigham Young's Indian
agent for the region and he evidently feared that the Paiutes would enter the
conflict since the Mormons had disguised themselves in Indian dress, apparently
to shift the blame. A cease fire was arranged between the Mormons and the Fanchers.
But as the unarmed Fanchers rode out between two columns of armed and mounted
Mormons, at a signal they were fired upon and killed: men, women and children.
This and other events caused the government in Washington to send out an army
under the command of General Albert Sydney Johnston to "put down the Mormon
rebellion." Johnston's army brought with them a new territorial governor
and a federal judge who set up his court in Provo, south of Salt Lake City.
One of the judge's first acts was to demand that the Church give up those responsible
for the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Church in turn gave up the man who had
tried to stop it, John D. Lee. Lee was found tending the ferry on the Colorado
River at a place which still bears his name. He was tried, found guilty, and
transported to Mountain Meadows where, after digging his own grave, he was executed.
The Army exhumed the half-buried remains of the Fanchers and placed them in
a common grave, over which was raised a rock cairn surrounded by a stone wall.
Years later Brigham Young, while visiting his home in St. George, rode up to
Mountain Meadows. Enraged by what the army had done, he ordered the cairn torn
down. But the wall remains and it was while sitting upon it looking up the haunted
valley of Mountain Meadows that I made this song. If the story is inaccurate
it is because I don't have it from a book but from a man named Earl Lyman for
whom I worked fifteen years ago. Mr. Lyman was a descendant of Amassa M. Lyman,
an apostle of the Church who lived in southern Utah. He was not the only one,
however, who admired John D. Lee as a great pioneer. Lee's life is there for
anyone to read about in his journals, edited by Juanita Brooks and published
by the Utah State Historical Society.
Horace once wrote, "Gallant heroes lived before Agamemnon, not a few; but
on all alike, unwept and unknown, eternal night lies heavy because they lack
a sacred poet." In the absence of a sacred poet, this song will have to
do.
Dog Canyon
It is proverbial among cattle ranchers that if you control the water, you control
the range. If you want someone else's water, all you can do is buy it, kill
the owner or marry his daughter. Many of the bloodiest battles in the West were
fought over water in range wars that lasted for years. One of the worst was
fought in the 1890s in the area around Tularosa, New Mexico, where the old longhorn
ranchers were pitted against the shorthorn syndicate ranchers who represented
giant development corporations in the East.
The Tularosa was a dry range, suitable for small herds of desert-bred longhorns
which could survive on less grass and water than their purebred cousins. The
syndicate ranchers arrived with herds of 10 and 20 thousand shorthorns and also
enough money and political muscle to drive the old-timers out. They could bribe
sheriffs and territorial legislators, buy out the weak ranchers or hire gunmen
to terrorize the holdouts. Up in the Tularosa Mountains lived a hermit named
Frenchy at a place called Dog Canyon or Canon Del Perro. Frenchy had his own
water and, besides running 500 or so longhorns, he grew grapes and apples. Frenchy
only came down to Tularosa to sell his produce or to bring in his cattle. The
rest of the time he kept pretty much to himself, except for occasional brushes
with local ranchers whom he regarded as little better than cattle rustlers.
The Syndicate, which wanted Frenchy's water, hired a man named Morrison to go
after it. Morrison got himself pretty badly shot up for his trouble. Then Billy
McNew, a gunman, was hired. McNew was a little smarter than Morrison and went
to work for Oliver Lee, one of the old-time ranchers, so that he could spy on
what Lee intended to do. Oliver Lee was also interested in Frenchy's water and
one afternoon rode up to Dog Canyon to talk it over. Billy McNew rode along.
When they arrived at Frenchy's, an argument developed and McNew took the opportunity
to gun the old hermit down.
Dog Canyon is a national monument now, not because of Frenchy but because of
its scenery. But down on the range where the descendants of the McDonalds, the
Altmans and the Lees still live, they remember who Frenchy was. I first heard
this story from a man in Trinidad, Colorado, who worked in a drug store but
was born in Tularosa in 1902.
Star Of Bannock
Parlor music is another name for home entertainment as it flourished before
the time of recorded music, radio and television. As any song folio from the
last century will demonstrate, this kind of music tended toward gentility and
sentiment. We have the picture of a family gathered around the old upright after
the dishes have been cleared and the parlor lamps turned up. Cordials for the
grown-ups and great cartwheels of oatmeal cookies (with a raisin in the center)
exhumed by smaller hands from Grandma's inexhaustible jar. Voices, booming and
frail, blend in the broad harmonies of the time as the strains of "Aura
Lee" or "Gentle Annie" float through fluttering curtains, over
slumbering porch cats, and invade the early evening, heavy with the smells of
roses and summer grass.
I sing these songs in bars to cadge drinks or to get up a road stake to take
me someplace else. The old heart songs seem laughable now, but there are still
plenty of Western bars where a few verses of "Lightning Express" or
"The Drunkard's Son" are good for a drink and a couple of dollars.
Why? When some drunk slips me a quarter and says, "Sing that again"
or "Do you know ... ?", the humor vanishes from these songs and I
get the feeling of something missing, lost perhaps, and of old things barely
remembered. Dance programs, pressed flowers, a quiet elegance somewhere between
William Faulkner and the Waltons. Rosalie knows what I mean. She sings dozens
of these old songs, like this one which I heard her sing back when she still
played the ukelele. That was long before she became Ma Sorrels, the notorious
Outlaw Queen, head of the infamous Vacuum Cleaner Gang. But that's a story you'll
have to get from her.
Sitting By The Old Corral
Modern ranching can be a complicated and highly mechanized affair. Quite often
a working cowboy has to be able to fly a helicopter, fix a jeep or run a hydraulic
post hole digger. Years ago a cowboy was hired to ride a horse and if you asked
him to do anything else, he'd either fight or quit. Understandably, there are
a lot of out-of-work cowboys these days, old-timers who are masters of their
trade but either can't work or won't because of the demands of machine age cattle
ranching. In small towns scattered throughout the Western states you can find
these guys lounging in front of bars, rolling endless cigarettes, and swapping
the same old stories (with variations) that have been going the rounds for fifty
years.
I remember when I first left home with Norman Ritchie (the guy who coined the
nickname U. Utah Phillips out of T. Texas Tyler). We were 15 or 16, full of
hell, and on our way to Yellowstone to find work. We wound up at the Canyon
Hotel pearl diving and the wages almost covered wine and smokes. Now all the
time we were growing up out West, people back in the East were working in factories
and insurance companies, saving up money to take the family out West for a vacation
in Yellowstone National Park. And all the time they were saving money, their
women-children were growing, and when they finally got enough money saved, their
women-children were 15 or 16 years old, same as us. Well. We knew about this
and also at what times the U.P. trains pulled into West Yellowstone and the
gear jammers bused the gringo turistas up to the lodges. We'd knock off work
early, about 3 in the afternoon, and go back to our barracks to prepare for
the big event. A half an hour later we'd be out on the porch at the Canyon Lodge
waiting for the buses to show up. Here's what we looked like: Regulation riveted
Levis tucked into the tops of high-heeled cowboy boots that are pointed on the
end so that the toes curl up a little. You tuck the pants in so that the eagles
show. No sense having eagles if they don't show. Hand-tooled wide leather belt
with a nickel-plated brass-mounted bucking horse cowboy buckle. Then the turquoise
artificial pearl snap-button long-tail form-fitting cowboy shirt. A leather
vest with a Bull Durham bag in the pocket with the tag hanging out so that the
bull won't shit in your pocket which, if you've tasted Bull Durham it already
did, so what's the use. You have your red bandana tied on backwards so that
it hangs down in a large triangle over one shoulder. Then there's the most important
part-the 4X Beaver Stetson with six months of constant rolling and blocking
in the brim and crown so that it sets just right.
Pretty soon the buses would roll in and the tourists would dismount. The young
ladies from the East would be looking all around, wide-eyed and gawky, as though
they expected to be carried off by savages at any moment. That's when we'd begin
the routine. First you hitch up your Levis and pull the Bull Durham sack out
of your pocket with one hand. Then you crimp a paper, pour the tobacco, pull
the bag shut with your teeth and put it back (with the tag hanging out). Now
you slow-roll a cigarette and hang it off your lower lip and fetch down a lucifer
match from your hat band, strike it on the seat of your pants, light the cigarette
behind your cupped hand, flick the match away, knock your hat back on your head
with the heel of your thumb, put one foot up against the wall, hook your thumbs
in your belt, roll your shoulders forward and look bad. All this is supposed
to be timed out so that your thumbs slide into your belt just as the ladies
reach the bottom of the porch steps by which time they have hopefully been rendered
properly reverent.
Now, the first time I tried this routine it went like this. I had it timed out
perfectly but I had just learned how to roll a cigarette. By the time they reached
the porch I had myself hooked and rolled. I could tell they were watching me,
while 1, locked into an attitude of surly indifference, stared straight ahead.
As I looked down my nose I saw that cigarette start to unroll and all that flaming
tobacco fell down into the tops of my boots. I was on fire, jumping around and
yelling and trying to yank my boots off with everybody pointing and laughing-well,
I lost points then that I have never regained. But that's what I think about
when I see these old-timers out in front of the bars in Ketchum or Salmon, and
I wonder how it will be when the vanity of youth has finally vanished and all
that's left is reminiscence with hardly anybody there to listen.
Johnny Thurman
I still have Blanche, my 1957 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery with which Nancy and
I crossed the country many times over the past three years. I've always preferred
driving instead of flying to places where I am performing because it gives me
the opportunity to look at the country in a slowed-down way and to talk to people
I'd never otherwise meet. We were crossing the Missouri line from Kansas several
years ago when we pulled into a gas station. The guy working there was so nervous
and upset that he had trouble getting the gas into the tank instead of all over
the ground. Inside of the station there was a Gibson electric guitar in an open
case on the counter with a For Sale sign on it. We hung around for a while and
when business slacked off, talked with the owner about the guitar and the kind
of music he liked. His name was Johnny Thurman, and after a cup of coffee and
some small talk, he came out with the reason for his being so upset.
It seems that he had been a rodeo hand, bull rider, up until fairly recently.
Then he got married, on condition that he give up the rodeo. So he went to work
in the gas station. A couple of weeks before, the rodeo came to Salina, Kansas,
and Johnny, without telling his wife, went over and signed up. The bull he drew
had never been ridden and, although Johnny's time was the best yet, the bull
dislocated his shoulder which of course lost him some time at work. The morning
of our arrival, Johnny's wife had called him up to tell him that she was filing
for divorce because he had broken his promise. That's why he was so mad. All
he wanted to do was to sell the electric guitar, buy a flat-top, load everything
into his camper, and take off after the rodeo. He really had his mind set on
it and I often wonder if he did. I think if you're good at something and really
want to do it, that's what you should be doing instead of living a life that
someone else has lined out for you. About 20 miles into Missouri, this song
fell out of my head.
Scofield Mine Disaster
When the Mormons settled Utah, their dominant interest was the building of stable
agricultural communities where the Saints could live and work together in peace
and prosperity, secure from the venality of the outside world. This venality
appeared to be concentrated in the several kinds of transient communities springing
up in other parts of the West, such as mining camps and cattle towns with their
large floating populations. Thus cattle ranching and prospecting were discouraged
among the Saints, although both eventually became common in parts of the Utah
Territory.
Mining in the West traditionally has been pictured as the discovery and exploitation
of gold, silver, copper and other metals. We seldom associate coal mining with
states other than Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. And yet large-scale
coal mining has gone on in Utah for many years in the centrally located county
named, appropriately, Carbon. This county is one of the most intriguing places
I know of. Although I studied Utah history in grade school along with everyone
else, I became aware of the existence of Carbon County only after I started
to travel around the state. I have always understood that Utah became a place
of substantial ethnic settlement after 1847. The missions of the Church enjoyed
considerable success in the East, the Southeast, Europe and Scandinavia. Converts
to the Church flocked to the City of the Saints as they continue to do today,
where communities were established which continue to exhibit their ethnic derivation.
As one delves into the subject, however, it becomes clear that the instruction
of history in Utah, at least when I attended school, consists of the study of
Mormon migration and settlement. Little if anything is made of the early Spanish
explorations or the settlements of fur trappers from which a number of Utah
place names are derived. And so it is with Carbon County, since it is for the
most part non-Mormon. The principal occupation there is mining, for which the
Mormons cared little. The mining communities after the turn of the century were
peopled not with Mormon immigrants but with Finnish, Italian and Slavic coal
miners who came out West as contract labor and who were for the most part Catholic.
Consequently their story is absent from the general history of the state, a
fact which amounts to something more than a simple oversight.
The story of Carbon County is much the same as that of other coal mining regions
of the country. Hard, dangerous work, frequent explosions and cave-ins, and
consequent labor struggles, all are a part of the oral history of the descendants
of immigrant miners who opened the pits at Price, Castle Gate and Scofield.
The story of the Scofield mine disaster came to me from an old Finnish miner
who was a teen-ager when the event took place. He showed me the graveyard with
its weathered wooden markers and then told me how a special train was arranged
to transport the bodies of those not buried at Scofield. He recalls the people
of the town watching from the hilltops as the train pulled out and he said,
"That was the longest and lonesomest train I ever saw." The song,
"Scofield Mine Disaster," is taken nearly word for word from this
old miner's recollections and is more his than mine.
Rock Me To Sleep
"Rock Me to Sleep" was written during my second month in New York
City five years ago. At the time, I found myself about to be drawn into a series
of transactions over which I was rapidly losing control. I was a stranger to
the music industry when I first arrived in New York. The more I became involved
in it though, through contracts, licenses, managements and agencies, the more
I began to realize that music and the music business are two different things,
the former existing only to serve the interests of the latter. A songwriter
in the commercial sense is like a coal miner, creating wealth which he does
not own. A coal miner goes down into the earth and brings up the coal which
is then carried away and sold for the profit of those who own it but do not
share the risks of mining. When a miner can no longer do anything which generates
profits he is abandoned and someone else found to take his place. It is much
the same in any trade. The music trade is peopled with frenetic little men in
knee-length leather coats who wear mustaches and neatly trimmed sideburns. They
market talent like sides of beef hanging on hooks and displayed in meat market
clubs where recording company executives pick and choose according to principles
of commercial reliability. Aesthetic considerations are secondary and in any
case arbitrated by those who are not involved in the creative process. Deals
are made, contracts signed, promotions launched, and careers planned according
to the same principles which control the marketing of can openers, eye make-up
and laundry detergent. Wealth is created through the manipulation of both the
artist and the consumer in a system which is the antithesis of much of what
the artist has to say. The music capitals of both coasts abound with the casualties
of a star system which, like capitalism itself, is built upon the basest of
human emotions, greed and envy.
I do not doubt that there are many hard-working, dedicated and honest people
who somehow continue to function at the heart of the music industry, but that
does not mitigate the fact that the industry itself is corrupt, perverse, absurd
and destructive. There is an old Wobbly aphorism which says, "Abundance
for workers, nothing for parasites." We who make music are workers creating
wealth as surely as coal miners and lumberjacks, wealth which supports a handful
of parasites. But that wealth is more than just the money and fame through which
we become perverted, despoiled and enslaved. It is the kind of wealth which
is central to the best creative energy of our many peoples, a creative energy
which can be the best expression of ourselves and the magic of our diversity.
If we continue to feed our music to a voracious and insane monster, the diversity
will vanish and the creative energy will exhaust itself in vain attempts to
secure the favors of a handful of witless tyrants. Surely our many kinds of
music and the traditions from which they emerge are worth more than the promises
of those who would destroy them for the sake of profit.
I've Got a Home Out In Utah
The Utah Valley Boys, or Volley Balls as we were affectionately known, played
a Neolithic form of bluegrass music around Salt Lake City in the early 1960s.
Our band performed wherever we could get away with it: family reunions, Kiwanis
luncheons, Mormon wards, and other centers of culture and refinement. One summer
a writer's conference or similar function was convened in Salt Lake, and the
organizers arranged for a picnic at Box Elder Flats up one of the canyons. Our
band was invited to provide occasional music (in our case, groups of sounds
which seemed occasionally musical). The guests of honor were former governor
Clyde and his wife. Mrs. Clyde was a woman of considerable prominence, physically
as well as socially. Moreover, she was, at the slightest provocation, capable
of producing an astonishing variety of sounds, most of them vocal, which she
insisted upon characterizing as song. Now, far from being critical, I have myself
consistently favored an aggressive approach to the matter of singing and have
shunned in my own utterance anything that might be considered delicate, dulcet
or thrush-like. On this occasion, however, I do feel that for reasons of ecology
alone Mrs. Clyde should have mastered her natural exuberance and refrained from
singing. Fifteen years have elapsed since this unhappy occasion and even now
forest creatures great and small continue to avoid the region, indeed as though
the event had become part of their racial memory.
It came about thus. The band quit when the Coors arrived and Mrs. Clyde, seizing
the opportunity, came forward to volunteer her rendition of the state song,
"Utah, I Love Thee." I was to be her accompanist, having, in a former
life, apparently committed a sin for which there is no remission. As for the
piece itself, its mere existence represents a legislative blunder which approaches
criminality and, although it might be useful to quote the text, the traumatic
nature of the experience here related has blotted it from my memory. To continue:
Imagine that imposing woman, Die Valkyrie incarnate, poised, hands clasped over
ample bosom, drawing in at the first breath enough air to raise the Thresher,
while the audience, instantly aware that something momentous and extraordinary
was about to transpire, flung their arms about the nearest rooted objects. The
chord was struck and the aria commenced. There issued from Mrs. Clyde a blast
so exquisitely painful, so consummately loud, as to give a seismologist heart
failure. Indeed, the very gates of Asgard must have been sundered and the God
of Thunder himself left stunned and supine over his shattered forge. There followed
a cascade of dissonant screeches and caterwauls akin to the pain-maddened bellowing
of now-extinct reptiles, or such as might have accompanied the sinking of the
Russian Baltic Fleet, while the beneficiaries of this stunning display, as though
having turned to witness Sodom in flames, were petrified, their blanched faces
suffused with a mixture of fear and awe. A final breast-swelling inhalation
and the piece ended on so strident a note that the very fabric of reality seemed
to split and into the mighty tear vaulted a thousand years of Western Musical
Tradition now rendered an irredeemable shambles. I fled pursued by the awful
memory of that sound which ten years of constant prayer and meditation in a
Nepalese monastery have scarcely dimmed.
As a residual effect of this incident, a considerable public clamor has arisen
demanding noise abatement programs, closer regulation of the activities of certain
literary luminaries and their cronies on the public lands, and the creation
of a new state song. With regards to this last, I here tender my humble endeavor.
Jesse's Corrido
In 1848 the war with Mexico ended. In its expansion westward, the United States
added to itself the entire northern half of the newly independent country of
Mexico, an immense region comprised of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California,
Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Abraham Lincoln, then a congressman, characterized
the war as imperialist, a war fought for territorial aggrandizement. Much of
the newly acquired lands had been settled for nearly 300 years, the principal
occupations of the settlers being mining, irrigated farming, and cattle ranching.
The Spanish-speaking population of the Southwest was guaranteed by the Treaty
of Guadalupe-Hidalgo certain rights: that all court and other public business
would be conducted in Spanish as well as English, that schools would be bilingual,
and that the rights of property would not be violated. The treaty, as with so
many others, was never implemented. Today, the descendants of those who stayed
behind at the end of the war have been systematically deprived of their treaty
rights, constitutional guarantees and the most fundamental human rights. Thousands
of men, women and children throughout the region spend their lives as migrant
workers, doing the most difficult kind of labor, forced to live in squalor and
paid wages representing a minute fraction of the wealth they create. All of
this they do on land which their forefathers once owned.
Because of these conditions, a new spirit is being born among the Chicano people
of the Southwest. "La Raze" is becoming a potent political and economic
force as more and more Chicanos become aware of the abuses of the past and organize
to seize their stolen heritage and the wealth that goes with it. To many militants,
the Southwest is a country which has existed for the last 130 years under foreign
military occupation, an occupation which continues to brutalize and destroy
a subject people who have been rendered powerless to resist. But power is returning.
Unless broad initiatives involving substantially more than civil rights are
undertaken by Washington and the separate states involved, the Southwest can
turn into an immense battlefield compared to which the urban riots of the Northeast
will seem insignificant.
Jesse Garcia was born into a racist and oppressive society which he nei t her
created nor understood. Abandoned by his mother, he grew up on the street and
in correctional institutions which, far from being correctional, were simply
instruments of further oppression. At the age of sixteen Jesse was convicted
of murder and sent to the Utah State Penitentiary, where he was used and brutalized
by the older convicts. In the early 1960s a major sex and drug scandal erupted
at the prison. Jake Varner, a convict, was killed in the prison attic. Three
other convicts, Mac Rivenburg, James Warner Bowen and Jesse Garcia were convicted
of the killing and sentenced to death by firing squad. A committee was organized
by Ethel Hale, Ammon Hennacy and Dr. Vieler of the University of Utah to secure
not Jesse's release, but a commutation of the death sentence. The struggle lasted
for many months, but the public, jaded by local newspaper stories of the viciousness
and brutality of convict life, offered little support. The Governor and the
Board of Pardons remained adamant.
On the eve of the execution, Ammon Hennacy called for an all-night vigil on
the road next to the prison so that we would be there when the sun rose and
hear the sound of the guns. My own sense of rage and futility were by this time
nearly out of control, and I decided to spend the time by myself. Shortly before
sunrise I made this song in an attempt to say some things which, at the time,
Jesse was not able to say for himself. The next day I learned that Mac Rivenburg
had committed suicide in his cell and that the Board of Pardons, having exacted
its "blood atonement," had commuted Jesse Garcia's sentence to life
in solitary confinement. When I last heard, Jesse was still there. Jesse and
Rivenburg were both Catholics. Bowen, a Mormon, is, I understand, now free.
Enola Gay
During the war years my father was stationed with the Army Air Corps at Wright-
Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio. We lived in a co-op village called Greenmont.
Our school was close to the field, where a great deal of research was done on
experimental aircraft. As children we saw the first P-38s, B-29s and those abortive
Flying Wings featured in Popular Mechanix during the late 1940s. When planes
took off from Wright-Pat, they flew low over Greenmont, and the kids playing
in the schoolyard would jump up and down and wave. If the pilot was looking
down, he would dip his wing. What a feeling-to have a whole airplane dip its
wing to you! When we moved to Utah in 1947 I learned about another plane which
flew its training missions over Salt Lake City. The plane was named Enola Gay
and it was based at Wendover, Utah, a secret Air Force base on the Nevada line
out in the Salt Flats. Enola Gay was commanded by Claude Tibbetts, who named
the plane for his mother. Her sister ship was called Bock's Car and was flown,
if my memory serves me correctly, by Kermit Behan. I often wondered if kids
in the Salt Lake playgrounds used to wave at these planes the way that we did
back in Dayton. With their training completed, the two aircraft, both B-29s,
flew from Wendover to Tinian Island in the Marianas. On August 6,1945, Enola
Gay took off from Tinian and dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On
August 9th, Bock's Car dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. These recollections
have come together to make this song.
As we strive to maintain the balance of terror in the world, it is useful to
remember just who is afraid of whom. Through the cold war, the arms race and
the proliferation of nuclear weapons, one fact looms largest: there is only
one country which has proven irrevocably that it has the will to use an atomic
bomb in warfare. Guess who.
Larimer Street
Here in the Northwest, logging roads were covered with wooden poles so that
logs could be skidded out of the forest. When a logger lost his Job in the camps,
he would gather up his gear and "hit the skids." Over the years Skid
Road has come to mean the collection of flophouse hotels, cheap diners, bars,
mission houses, hock shops, secondhand stores, alleys and day labor offices
which make up the oldest part of any city. If you're a stranger in town, you
can always find the skids by walking downhill, since towns were originally settled
along rivers and streams at the bottoms of valleys or close to the waterfront.
This is the part of town where the work used to get done, on the docks in the
factories or railroad yards which also follow d the rivers. But as the cities
grew and became more and more congested, those who could afford to moved out
or "up" depending on how you look at it. The upper crust (a handful
of crumbs held together by a wad of dough) have always occupied the high ground,
probably for defensive reasons as in feudal times. That's where we get terms
like upper and lower class, high and low born. Georgraphy, pure and simple,
Cities were never built for people, you know. They were built as meeting places
for banking, manufacturing and transportation interests, with people filling
in the cracks as best they could. But as the industrial base expanded, requiring
more room it de-centralized into the doughnut suburbs which surround the city.
The money moved out, following manufacturing to the industrial parks which had
already pulled out the work force and with it the tax base which used to support
downtown. The middle of the city became a "blighted area" and filled
up with unskilled and semi-skilled workers looking for cheap rent, old people
with little or no income, racial and ethnic minorities looking for work, and
rural people fleeing a family farm system which was rapidly being taken over
by technology and agribusiness. All of these people were casualties of the profit
system, and some, unable to hang on any more, became economic, social and political
zeroes shut out completely from the society which had created them. I use the
past tense only because that's how I started out; I'm really talking about right
now. Over the past twenty years, those who own the wealth have gradually turned
their attention to the waning economic return from their downtown investments.
With federal assistance through urban renewal and model cities programs, they
are seeking to turn loss into profit, generally at the expense of those whom
the system of profit and loss has hurt the most. In Denver, Chicago, Boston,
Salt Lake and Spokane the story is the same-clean up the downtown area and make
it pay. But don't build anything new to meet the needs of those who can't afford
to pay. Just run them out of town.
Pig Hollow
Friends and Brothers, for many years now we have all understood that railroads
exist solely to carry persons such as ourselves from one place to another. The
business of transporting freight simply helps to defray the expense of this
noble and much needed endeavor. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly
commend the Union Pacific, Burlington-Northern, Denver-Rio Grande and Western
and similar charitable organizations for their benign efforts on our behalf
and to offer heartfelt thanks for affording us the opportunity to spend so many
carefree hours watching the pleasant landscape flow by. Oh, the rich pageantry!
The bracing mountain air, sparkling lakes and snow-capped peaks spread out before
us like a handful of jewels. Lulled into blissful reverie by the gentle swaying
of our noble chariots, we gaze enraptured at the panoramic splendor of America.
Exaggeration? Ah no, my friends. I cannot believe that so heady a delight as
we have enjoyed for lo these many years could simply be the result of economic
necessity. Surely the Almighty has penetrated the hearts of railroad executives,
and through them his divine purpose moves: that we homeless vagabonds are permitted
to advance that spirit of adventure for which our mothers bore us and which
is so firmly rooted in the very heart of our great Republic. Indeed, I affirm
without fear of contradiction the belief that God, Motherhood, The Founding
Fathers and the Railroad are committed to permitting the hobo his humble existence.
I hasten to add, however, that all is not rosy and bright with our Brotherhood
of the Road. On every hand villains and assassins assault our way of life, indeed
our very persons. High-binders and cutpurses sap our meager resources as the
necessities of life (wine, a humble crust and a quiet corner in which to enjoy
well-earned repose) continue to soar in price. Organized authority (which any
sensible person must assume was constituted for our protection) now falls upon
us cloaked in the foul disguise of "custodians of law". Where, I ask,
will it end'? Will we, in the final extremity, be forced to abandon our historic
mission of bringing the divine law of "Freedom in Mobility" to the
benighted heathen cringing meekly in factory and barnyard? Will we (oh dire
presentiment!) be driven to join them in that abomination against our class
and kind- WORK? No, I say, a thousand times NO! Take heart, noble companions!
Share with me a sacrament of our sacred beverage, shoulder your bindles and
once more plunge into the fray, secure in the knowledge that we carry with us
the future of the Republic, indeed the hopes and dreams of all mankind. Let
us sing. (Speech to be delivered at the 1976 bicentennial Hobo Convention in
Britt, Iowa, where I intend to be elected King. Campaign staff positions are
now being filled and all donations are gratefully accepted and can be forwarded
to Philo Records. They are, of course, tax deductible.)
She'll Never Be Mine
After the Civil War thousands of people moved west, escaping economic depression
in the North and the ruins of war in the South. They came out here looking for
jobs and a new life. Many settled into communities and raised families, while
others boomed from job to job, laying track, mining, logging and harvesting
crops. Everywhere the boomers went they created vast wealth out of which emerged
the great fortunes of Hearst, Vanderbilt and others. As always, the wealth was
owned by somebody else, and the boomer, once a job ran out, simply moved on
to the next one. The time of the boomers is past now for all but a few. Still
the wealth
created by the many continues to be concentrated in the hands of the few. Our
schoolbooks tell us how the West was won but not for whom. That is a well kept
secret. But I have the feeling that if we really understood our own history,
we'd get together and win the West all over again, this time for ourselves,
First we absolutely must insist that our schools teach us our true history and
not some made-up bullshit that the ruling class needs to keep us in line. We
need schools; but as long as we're going to pay for the damn things, they may
as well teach us something we can use. Doesn't that make sense?
Yuba City (if I Had a List)
I was in Chicago staying at the I.W.W. hall when the newspapers broke the
story of the 25 hoboes who were found buried in an orchard outside of Yuba City,
California. Fred Thompson, one of our organizers, pointed out to me that none
of the dead could be identified, simply because no one had bothered to take
down a name. Fred knew that I had spent some time out there and asked me to
write a song for our newspaper, The Industrial Worker. I finished the song in
Philadelphia where Saul Broudy gave it a tune.
I don't know how much senseless brutality has to be lived through before our
world realizes that behind every face there lives a human being, a person whose
life is as important as anyone else's. Everywhere our politicians make loud
noises about the ecology of land, water and air, and yet fail to consider the
ecology of people living in a world where human life is squandered through greed
and indifference. Sure, the men killed at Yuba City were bums, drifters, day
laborers. But their lives were shaped by that greed and indifference and, in
the end, that's what killed them.
The Sweet Briar
Well, this has been quite a treatise. I don't often write, as the discipline
required is foreign to my nature. I do feel as though I have a book or two in
me and only await an opportunity to take off a year to give it a try. I'm open
to suggestions.
Now, as I go back over these pages, I see that we have covered quite a bit of
ground, but I have no apologies when I consider that the struggle here has been
to decide what could be safely omitted. The result is a sort of patchwork, part
satire, part polemic, part reminiscence, and all of it a confusion of literary
styles and jargons which seem to have been written by more than one person.
That's all right though. I don't mind being several people as long as we get
along together. Hell, Chang and Eng Bunker, the original Siamese Twins, both
married and had children. So who am I to complain?
This final song, "The Sweet Briar," was taught to me by Rosalie Sorrels,
my best and most ancient friend, who got it from a manuscript in the possession
of Olive Wooley Burt, an author and journalist who lives in Salt Lake City.
I include it here because it says something that I think I forgot to mention
elsewhere. That is, that the West is beautiful and worth living in. Just that.
If I seek it out, there is a solitude out here where complicated thoughts and
feelings unravel themselves and a measure of sanity can be restored, a condition
which I occasionally find desirable.
You know, our people have been on the move for a long time. First it was outward
mobility from Europe to the East Coast and on to the Pacific Ocean. After meeting
that insurmountable barrier, the tremendous energy that went into getting there
translated itself into upward mobility, the quest for the good life. But, as
events have shown, upward mobility too has its Pacific Ocean. The energy is
still there, and it seems to me that the only path left to us is inward mobility.
The exploration of ourselves involves traversing a wilderness more awesome than
any faced by the Mormon pioneers. And I have it on the best authority that the
journey, once begun, has no end.
Come along with me to some places that I've been
Where people all look back and still remember when
And the quicksilver legends like sunlight turn and blend-
It's sad but the telling takes me home.
We'll walk along some wagon roads or down the iron
rail
Past lines of rusty Cadillacs that mark the boomtown trail,
Where dreamers never win and doers never fail-
It's sad but the telling takes me home.
I could tell you all some lies that were just made
up for fun,
Where the loudest, meanest brag could beat the fastest gun,
And I'll show you nameless graves that tell the way the West was won-
It's sad but the telling takes me home.
I'll sing of my amigos who come from down below,
And whisper in their loving tongue the songs of Mexico;
They work their stolen Eden lost so long ago-
It's sad but the telling takes me home.
I'll sing about an emptiness the East has never
known,
Where coyotes don't pay taxes and a man can be alone,
And you'd have to walk forever just to find a telephone-
It's sad but the telling takes me home.
Let me sing to you all the songs I know
Of wild windy places locked in timeless snow,
And wide crimson deserts where muddy rivers flow-
It's sad but the telling takes me home.
The Goodnight-Loving Trail
Too old to wrangle or ride on the swing,
You beat the triangle and curse everything,
And if the dirt was a kingdom, you'd be the king;
Chorus: On the Goodnight Trail, on the Loving Trail,
Our old woman's lonesome tonight.
Your French harp blows like a lone bawling calf;
It's a wonder the wind don't tear off your skin,
Get in there and blow out the light.
With your snake oil and herbs and your liniment
too,
You can do anything that a doctor can do
Except find a cure for your own goddamn stew; (Cho.)
The cookfire's out and the coffee's all gone,
The boys are up and we're raising the dawn;
You're still sifting there all lost in a song, (Cho.)
I know that someday I'll be just the same
Wearing an apron instead of a name,
And no one can change it and no one's to blame;
The desert's a book wrote in lizards and sage,
It's easy to look like an old torn-out page,
All faded and cracked with the colors of age; (Cho.)
Old Dolores
In the country down below where the little pinons grow,
It's nearly always half a day to water;
There stood a little town where the creek come tumbling down
From the mesa where she surely hadn't oughter.
The streets were bright with candlelight;
The whole town joined the chorus;
And every man in sight let his cattle drift at night,
Just to mosey to the town of old Dolores.
Well things'd kind of spin 'til the sun come up
again,
Like the back of some old yellow prairie wagon,
And show you dim and red maybe half a hundred head
Of our saddle ponies standing reins a draggin'.
The red mud walls, the waterfalls,
The whole wide world before us;
Now the 'dobe walls are gone, the goats' bell in the dawn
Ain't a-jingling in the streets of old Dolores.
The dance hall girls would fool in the plaza in
the cool,
It's there he used to meet her by a willow;
But I guess that any girl gives a feller's heart a whirl
When the same's been using saddles fer a piller.
The wide-eyed stars, the long cigars,
The drinks at Joe Portfora's.
If there's any little well down within the gates of hell,
I know the boys have called it old Dolores.
John D. Lee
Here's news come to the city about a wagon train;
Here's news come to the city about a wagon train;
How men and all their families by John D. Lee was slain.
Brigham Young sent out a runner, bid Squire Wells
to come;
Brigham Young sent out a runner, bid Squire Wells to come;
Go down into that country and see my justice done.
He gathered up a posse, a dozen men or more,
He gathered up a posse, a dozen men or more,
They tracked across the desert to the Colorado shore.
No sooner they crossed over than John D. Lee was
found,
No sooner they crossed over than John D. Lee was found,
Down in the Indian village the squaws was camped around.
The horses from Missouri was found in his corral;
The horses from Missouri was found in his corral;
The Squire read him guilty the facts we find here tell.
A wagon and a coffin, they make a heavy load,
A wagon and a coffin, they make a heavy load,
To haul up to the meadow along the black ridge road.
Way up in Mountain Meadows they made him dig his
grave,
Way up in Mountain Meadows they made him dig his grave,
Though loudly he protested, his life he thought to save.
The wagons they still smoldered, their ashes blew
around,
The wagons they still smoldered, their ashes blew around,
In sight of this mute evidence, they shot their victim down.
Some say he was not guilty, so I have heard it
said,
Some say he was not guilty, so I have heard it said,
The deed fell to his captors who should have died instead.
His grave is undiscovered, the grass it grows so
tall,
His grave is undiscovered, the grass it grows so tall,
Such was the Saints' own vengeance on John D. Lee did fall.
Dog Canyon
Ten thousand shorthorns are moving in fast,
They drink lots of water, they eat lots of grass;
Your penny stockbrokers have made quite a change,
Now our old outfit's drove to the edge of the range.
In Canyon Del Perro there's grapes on the vine,
The water runs sweet as an old Spanish wine,
The high Tularosas they make a fine home
For a man who don't mind living up there alone.
Young Perry Altman was burned out last night,
They shot George McDonald 'cause he wanted to fight,
The days of the longhorn are over I guess
When your syndicate gunmen have run out the rest.
Way up in Dog Canyon old Frenchie holds out,
Half-blind and crippled but he never knows drouth;
He has the good water. Tell me what would you do
If you had to protect it from Billy McNew?
He dreams of a village where the sun always shines,
And he dreams of his family when it comes Christmas time,
Now he dreams in his doorway with a gun in his hand,
And Oliver Lee says "You crazy old man."
Well Frenchie he fires but the shot it goes wide,
He falls to the floor with a hole in his side,
And his water runs down to the ranches below
When the high Tularosas are covered with snow.
The Star of Bannock
Under the lamplight's flickering gleam,
In the dirt of a dance hall floor,
The beautiful Star of Bannock lies
Never to shine no more.
She had a lover so good and so true
In the East that she left behind;
She came to the West like so many do
Her fame and her fortune to find.
Her fortune she found on the dance hall floor
Where her beauty would turn men's heads;
She was the queen of them all,
Now the beautiful star is dead.
She was young and lighthearted, she danced and
she sang,
Played the game as she knew it-square;
She trusted her friends and never did think
That a bullet would find her there.
Now many an eye with tears is filled,
And many a laugh is stilled,
For the beautiful Star of Bannock lies
In a grave on a lonesome hill.
Sitting By The Old Corral
Sitting by the old corral with just my memories,
That is all I've got I'm sad to say.
Old Pal has gone to rangeland far up on the trail,
Seems I'm all alone a helpless stray.
Sifting all alone by the old corral
Thinking of the days that used to be;
I don't ask for pity, I just want a friend,
Someone just to keep me company.
If I could only bring back all the memories
Of those good old happy carefree days;
Riding in the round-up, branding in the fall,
Cutting out that bawling, ornery stray.
With the roundup over, when the work was done,
A bunch of us would all ride into town,
Singing of our sweethearts as we rode along,
While the harvest moon was shining down.
Sifting by the old corral, I'm just on borrowed
time,
Waiting for to hear my range-boss call;
No one here beside me, I've lost my only friend
Since he's gone and left an empty stall.
Sitting all alone by the old corral,
Thinking of the days that used to be;
I don't ask for pity, I just want a friend,
Someone just to keep me company.
Johnny Thurman
Where did you come from, where will you go,
Where did you come from my young Johnny-o?
I come for to ride and I come for to sing
And I come for to bring you a big diamond ring.
Oh, I am a cowboy, wild Brahmas I ride
But I promised to quit them for the sake of my bride,
Now I work in a station and all I can do
Is think about riding and team roping, too.
I drove to Salinas about two weeks ago
And signed on to ride in the big rodeo,
Well I drew a Brahma, he come out so fast,
That he pulled out my shoulder and I could not last.
He bucked and he sunfished, I kicked and I cussed,
Then I picked myself up and shook out the dust,
That old 27 was ornery and strong
But no one had ever stayed on him that long.
I went down to work, it was early today,
My young wife she called me these few words to say,
"You have broken your promise and it's easy to see
You love these wild Brahmas more than you love me."
I'll load up my camper, take a flat top guitar
And play country music in every damn bar,
I'll pick up my paycheck, get ready to go
And head out to follow the big rodeo.
Oh, where did you come from and where will you
go,
Where did you come from my young Johnny-o?
I come for to ride and I come for to sing,
But I didn't come to bring you no goddamn ring!
Scofield Mine Disaster
Chorus: Don't you see that funeral train,
Don't you see that funeral train,
Rolling down that lonesome valley,
It's the longest one I've seen.
May the first was bright and clear,
1900 was the year,
A great explosion rocked our town,
While the men were underground.
When we gathered at the slide
We thought that just a few had died,
Fought our way in past the mine head,
Carried out two hundred dead.
When we brought them to the light,
It was a black and awful sight,
In one family there was nine
Lost inside that burning mine.
A miner's life is hard I know,
His world is dark and far below,
While he starves and goes in rags,
He's cheaper than the coal he digs.
Rock Me To Sleep
It's a long way from Salt Lake to Denver,
Bumming the D&RG;
The moonlight catches the river below
And lights up the rocks and the trees.
You follow the wide Colorado
Till it narrows down into a stream,
The train whistle playing a slow lullaby,
And you're rolling along in a dream.
Rock me to sleep on your bosom;
Hold me close to your breast;
Don't leave me alone on these cold city streets,
But find me a track headed West;
I'm tired of your big operators,
I'm tired of your music machine;
I'm tired of playing for nickels and dimes
And the times are always so lean.
It's a long way from noplace to somewhere,
Bumming all the good years away;
Tonight I'm feeling so lonesome and cold,
Maybe I'll find it someday.
I've Got A Home Out in Utah
I've got a home out in Utah,
In the Rockies that I've learned to love so well;
Where the Sego lilies bloom and send up their bright perfume;
In the shadow of the mountains there I dwell.
You can take away all of my money,
You can take away most anything I own,
But I've got a home out in Utah,
It's a place that I can always call my own.
I've listened to the pines in the canyons,
And heard them as they whispered to the stars;
The stream rolled along and I sang a happy song
While I played upon my old guitar;
Though tomorrow may find me a-drifting
In a place where I'm friendless and alone,
I've got a home out in Utah;
I'll always have my Rocky Mountain home.
I've got a girl out in Utah
Just as pretty as the ground she walks upon.
She'll be true I know wherever I may go
And miss me every moment that I'm gone.
I can tell by the letters that she writes me
(I don't even have to read between the lines)
That I've got a girl out in Utah
Just waiting for the day that she'll be mine.
Jesse's Corrido
On the corners together you'll find us,
'Neath the street lamps at midnight we're there,
Our spirits like smoke that blows through the night,
Restless but going nowhere.
Trouble is all we can give you
For trouble is all we have known,
Our lives like water that runs through our hands
Leaving us unloved and alone.
Our fathers you say were just like us,
Our children will all be the same
Hair like black leather and skin brown as wood,
Speaking some low Spanish name.
Remember the mothers who gave us our lives
Like grass in the spring of their years,
And left us behind with hearts light as wine
Their breasts undissolved by our tears.
The things that I do are all very bad things,
I do them and then don't know why.
You hold up your children with blue or brown eyes
And say they're much better than I.
My friends, they too all despise me,
I do all the wrong they have planned,
And all that I have for the years of my life
Is a cross that I've cut on my hand.
You put me in jail behind iron bars,
You find me with blood on my hands,
Tomorrow I'll stand up in front of your guns
And give you the life you demand.
But when you sit down at your table tonight
With children and wife sitting by,
Recall this corrido my red blood has made
And now miamigos, goodbye.
Enola Gay
Look out, look out from your schoolroom window,
Look up young children from your play,
Wave your hand at the shining airplane
Such a beautiful sight is Enola Gay.
It's many a mile from the Utah desert,
To Tinian Island far away,
Standing guard by the barbed wire fences
That hide the secret of Enola Gay.
High above the clouds in the sunlit silence,
So peaceful here, I'd like to stay,
But there's many a pilot who would swap his pension
For a chance to fly Enola Gay.
What is that sound high above my city?
I rush outside and search the sky.
Now we are running to find the shelter.
The air raid sirens start to cry.
What will I say when my children ask me
Where was I flying upon that day?
With trembling voice I gave the order
To the bombardier of Enola Gay.
Look out, look out from your schoolroom window,
Look up, young children from your play,
Your bright young eyes will turn to ashes
In the blinding light of Enola Gay.
I turn to see the fireball rising,
"My God, My God" all I can say,
I hear a voice within me crying,
My mother's name was Enola Gay.
Look out, look out from your schoolroom window,
Look up, young children from your play;
When you see those war planes flying,
Each one is named Enola Gay.
Larimer Street
Your bulldozers rolling through my part of town
The iron ball swings and knocks it all down,
You knocked down my flophouse and you knocked down my bars
And black-topped it over to park all your cars.
Chorus: And where will I go and where can I stay?
You knocked down the skid row and hauled it away,
I'll flag a fast rattler and ride it on down, boys,
They're running the bums out of town.
Old Maxie the tailor is closing his doors,
There ain't nothing left in the secondhand stores,
You knocked down my hock shop and the big Harbor Lights
And the old Chinese cafe that was open all night.
You ran out the hookers who worked on the street
And built a big club where the playboys can meet.
My bookie joint closed when your cops made a raid,
But you built a new hall for the stock market trade.
These little storekeepers they don't have a chance
With the big uptown bankers a-calling the dance,
With their suit-and-tie restaurants that's all owned by Greeks
And the counterfeit hippies and their plastic boutiques.
Now I'm finding out there's just one kind of war,
It's the one going on 'tween the rich and the poor.
Don't know a lot about what you'd call class
But the upper and middle can all kiss my ass.
Pig Hollow
Slow rolling freight from the South Ogden yard
Easing along down the line,
The Pig Hollow jungle camp pulls into view,
You roll off and here's what you find,
The ruins and ashes lie scattered around,
The jungle is empty and bare,
The shanties and tents are all burned to the ground
Not a fire or a friend anywhere.
A rich man he lives in a house made of stone,
High on a hill looking down,
A poor man he lives in a tarpaper shack
Way out on the back side of town;
But a rich man don't worry about his fine house,
It's protected like you never saw,
While a poor man gets railroaded out by the cops
And his house gets burned down by the law.
A poor man is fighting for all that he has
He stands with his back to the wall;
A rich man he spends nearly half of his life
Just chasing a little white ball;
But a rich man he says that Pig Hollow must go
It's a place where the crooks rendezvous.
But don't you suppose if you burned down the bank
You might flush a scoundrel or two?
And don't you suppose if a bum with a torch
Set fire to some big fancy hall,
The cops'd come down like a blood-thirsty hound
And flat nail his hide to the wall?
It seems like the laws are all made for the rich.
They've got you boys, win, lose or draw;
Tray as you may to keep out of their way,
You just get burned out by the law.
Yuba City
I came into Yuba as soon as I read
Of all of those twenty-five hobos found dead,
I came in to find out if one of the slain
Could have answered to my brother's name.
It might be your brother, I just couldn't say,
We hire lots of floaters who work by the day;
Now I see his photo they might be the same,
But I never did ask him his name.
Chorus: If I had a list and if I only knew,
I'd write down their names and sing them to you,
And when I got done, I'd sing them again,
So you'd all know each one had a name.
He had a room and ran out on the rent,
Hired on a crew, I don't know where he went,
If I knew his boss, I might make a claim,
But I never did write down his name.
He stopped for a drink every now and again,
Didn't look no different than hundreds of men;
You know these old bums, they all look the same,
No reason to ask him his name.
It might have been Shorty, a feller I knew,
We bunked in the empties when the season was through.
You know, I been thinking, it sure is a shame
I never did ask him his name.
We always abandon the old for the new,
And second-hand people get thrown away, too;
I know it won't help, but still it explains
Why no one remembers their names.
She'll Never Be Mine
My love is a river where the white waters pour,
I've hunted and trapped her through the Gates of Ladore.
She sings through a curtain of cold mountain rain
Where I dug her bright silver in the high Coeur d'Alene.
Chorus: She'll never be mine
She'll never be mine
I won all her treasures so simple and fine
I guess she'll never be mine.
My love's a cantina where I drink with my friends,
I've called her Dolores or sometimes Cheyenne;
I followed her begging all over the West,
My love is a headlight on the midnight express.
My love is Montana and the high Douglas fir;
Many long summers I've labored for her.
My love is the windrows of dry autumn corn
That grew on the land where my children were born.
My love is the life that a boomer will lead,
You bought her with lies and you chained her with greed;
My love is a dreamer, follow the dream;
You say she's a beggar, I say she's a queen.
Chorus: Someday she'll be mine
Someday she'll be mine
Won all her treasures so simple and fine,
I know someday she'll be mine.
The Sweet Briar
The sweet briar and the aurum brush
With blossoms purple gold and red
Are flames that bloom within the bush
And sacred seems the ground I tread.
The golden bees, the golden bees
Mock Memnon's sweetest melodies;
The golden bees, the golden bees
Mock Memnon's sweetest melodies.
In shadow of the wood I lie
Un-waked by dreams of noisy mart;
Where dust and soot soil not the sky
Nor hammers beat on human heart;
Nor shuttles fleet, nor shuttles fleet
Weave life into a winding sheet;
Nor shuttles fleet, nor shuttles fleet
Weave life into a winding sheet.
When the pale axman strikes his stroke
And takes the warm life from my breast,
Plant by my grave a sapling oak
And violets of azure crest.
The oaken staff, the oaken staff
My shaft, the flowers my epitaph;
The oaken staff, the oaken staff
My shaft, the flowers my epitaph.
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Copyright ©1975, 2000 Bruce Phillips
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