Why The Cowboy Sings Transcript
Why The Cowboy Sings, Transcription
Transcribed by Daniel W. Patterson
NARRATOR, HAL CANNON: The image only captures part of it. It's this elemental life, out in the wilds every day in every weather, only the scant companionship of horses, cows, and a few humans. It's so unlike most of our lives today.
VOICE OF TOM RUSSELL, singing Mary McCaslin’s “Prairie in the Sky”:
I ride an old blue roan.
I carry all I own
In the pouches of my saddlebags
With my bedroll tied behind.
HAL: I love cowboy songs. To me, they capture this life so completely, but I've always wondered why, amongst all the jobs a person can have, these guys still breathe life into their musical inheritance. And if you think the cowboy and his music are just a relic of bygone days, just stick around.
ANNOUNCER: "Why The Cowboy Sings" was made possible in part through the generosity of the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, the R. Harold Burton Foundation, and the Dick Burton Foundation.
(over film footage of THE JIMMY WAKELY TRIO, singing Brad Brown’s “Git Along Little Pony”
Git along, little pony, git along, git along.
Git along, little pony, git along.
Gotta meet my gal in old Cheyenne tonight.
HAL: So, what made cowboys sing in the first place? Maybe the experts will know.
WALLACE McRAE, Poet-Rancher: They were starved for entertainment. And so, they told stories, and the stories became poems, and the poems became songs. (over a shot of a cowboy dodging a bull) And it was a way of avoiding boredom.
HAL: Sounds a little lonely out there just singing to yourself.
RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOTT, Folk Singer: I got a chance to sing to a herd of cattle one day when I was herding cattle on a big ranch up in Western Wyoming. And they just stopped drinkin' and stopped chewin' their cud, and they just looked at me, and they were so fascinated. They thought I was Dean Martin.
RAMBLIN’ JACK, singing “The Night Herding Song” by Colter Wall:
Oh say, little dogies,
Why don't you lay down?
HAL: Oh, boy. If anyone will know, it's Waddie.
HAL: So, Waddie, why does the cowboy sing?
WADDIE MITCHELL, Cowboy Poet: Why does a frog croak?
HAL: I think it's time to hit the trail. The wide open's always a good place to look for answers. And it's a fine time, middle of the winter, when things slow down on a ranch.
FILM TITLE: Why the Cowboy Sings
(over Buck Ramsey singing “Hittin’ the Trail Tonight” by early cowboy poet Bruce Kiskaddon and Hal Cannon)
I'm hittin' the trail tonight.
I'm hittin' the trail tonight.
My horse is pulling the bridle reins--
I'm hittin' the trail tonight.
HAL: I think I'll go visit Glenn Ohrlin.
GLENN OHRLIN: Well, I been bustin' broncos.
HAL: He's a true-blue, old-time cowboy who doesn't fall for all this cowboy hoopla.
GLENN: I don't like too much mystique to everything, 'cause it isn't really necessary.
HAL: Ah, then I think I'll go see Stephanie Davis. A few years ago, she wrote a hit song for Garth Brooks. Then she quit Nashville and came back to Montana ranching country.
STEPHANIE DAVIS: I moved back home here and walked the hills. I just walked. My neighbors thought I was so strange, but that's what I needed to do is let the wind wash me clean.
MAN (riding his horse and singing): Driving down Wind River . . .
HAL: How about a visit to an Indian cowboy, Henry Real Bird? Yeah, you heard me right, an Indian cowboy.
HENRY REAL BIRD: My grandpa, he'd always say that the cowboy is as close to being an Indian as you can ever be.
HAL: But first, I think I'll go visit Larry Schutte. He and his wife Toni, and their kids John and Reata, ranch out in a big open valley near Oasis, Nevada. Though they live 50 miles away from our little ranch, they're considered neighbors out here.
LARRY SCHUTTE, ending a prayer at the dining table: Praise the Lord for a beautiful day, the fellowship around this table and your hand upon the work, no harm or injury to anybody. Lift up in Jesus' name, Amen.
VOICES: Amen. Amen.
LARRY (as he goes through a stable for a horse): Get your horse from out of there.
HAL: The Schuttes’ days are filled with an ancient rhythm of seasons and husbandry. They warm up the horses instead of warming up a car's engine before going to work.
LARRY: In there, that was soft. These roads going into the cattle guard are kind of soft, but you can get through it.
RANCH HAND: She can't make it back in the good road?
LARRY: She might.
HAL (over a shot of Larry Schutte with a guitar and Hal Cannon a mandolin, who have been playing “Cowboys Waltz”): Larry and I like swapping tunes. In 1985, we started what has become the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, and it really spurred on a whole grassroots arts movement in the West. In the beginning, Larry was one of the main guys, but as the whole thing became popular, a lot of the talented cowboys began traveling and performing. But from the very first, Larry turned down most invitations, and I've always wondered why.
LARRY: Well, I'm doing what I want to do, but I wanted to stay with my family.
HAL: That was mainly it?
LARRY: That's it. The rest of it can fly. I wanted to raise kids. I wanted to be with that woman.
HAL: Yeah.
LARRY: And we're doing what we want to do here. Just blessed to have little piece of country, do what we want to do. We don't make no money, but here we are a-setting, enjoying the sun. Everybody else had to get up and go to work.
HAL: Yeah.
LARRY: Ten bucks an hour. (laughing) I'm happy with three bucks an hour.
(outside trying to gather cattle, to his wife) Get them around the point here and then look. There was three or four head ran off of this. Well, you're late.
TONI SCHUTTE (on her horse, laughing): It's 'cause you're yakking.
LARRY: Well.
TONI (sings as she rides off on her assignment): I ride an old Dan, I lead an old paint.
07:03
LARRY, inside the house with Hal Cannon and others, playing and singing Ian Tyson’s “La Primera” (over shots of horses):
:.
Long hard journey to the Americas.
Fourteen hundred ninety-three
I was afraid I would die of thirst.
Little mare beside me died,
Was put into the sea,
I survived, swam ashore.
I’m La Primera.
LARRY: A horse will teach you preservation. They're the most incredible animal Lord made, because they're so forgiving. You learn something from every one of them.
Sixteen of us--sorrels, blacks, and bays.
One of them was my first born.
He was called Coyote Dun.
He survived and conquered all the gold.
I am a drinker of the wind.
I am the one who never tires.
I love my freedom more than all these things.
Conquistador, Comanche and cowboy--
I carried them to glory.
La Primera, Spanish mustang.
Hear my story.
High in the Pryor Mountains
In the first light of dawn
A coyote dun walks (song fades away). . .
HAL, with John Schutte in a room, playfully twirling a cord to lasso a small wooden bull on a table: Maybe I'll start doing Houlihan. You know the Houlihan?
JOHN SCHUTTE: Yeah. Nail him!
HAL, missing the toss: Ugh.
TONI (amused, watching with Larry from an adjoining room): It's amazing the man can even feed himself.
HAL (succeeding): Okay, ha!
JOHN: Oh, oh, keep him on the table, keep him on the table. (lassos the rear end of the little bull)
HAL: Okay, okay, hey. Yes!
HAL: The Schuttes have always worked on remote ranches far from school and town. When the kids were young, Toni had a choice to make.
09:27
TONI (over shots of her at work and looking at family photographs): I was terrible in school. And I remember when I went to the school board and told them that I was going to teach kids at home, and they said, “Well, you know, Toni, that's not a really good idea.” But I thought, you know, if the Lord wants this family to stay together, then he's going to help me, and he did. I remember the first day John was reading the old McGuffey Readers, he was sitting at the kitchen table and read the first page and his face just lit up and he tore out of the house, went running down the hill, "Dad, Dad, I can read, I can read." And I thought, you know, if they'd been in town, I'd have missed all that.
REATA SCHUTTE BROWN (playing a guitar and singing her song “Nevada” on stage):
Well, years passed on.
I headed far from home.
The skies just weren't so blue.
I miss the sage and I miss the. . .
HAL: Reata and John, both in their mid-twenties, remind me a lot of their folks when I first knew them. Reata, like her dad, has a passion for singing and even performed solo at The Gathering last year.
REATA (continuing):
The city life just ain't for me.
It's where my heart will never be.
HAL: Toni is an artist and passed that skill on to John. Though he'd rather be thought of as a roper and a cowboy, art has always come naturally to him.
TONI: (over shots of John’s drawings of cattle): He was like three years old, and he was drawing then and he just--it's like he has a photostatic memory, he can just, you know. He's out there working all the time, and he comes in, and he'll just (gesturing)--and he's got it done. And it's just pretty amazing.
REATA (concluding her song to applause from the audience):
Nevada, oh, oh, oh, oh, you're always on my mind.
HAL: The Schuttes are an inspiration to me. The way they live with each other, and the way they live on the land. But for them, inspiration resides somewhere else.
TONI (outside): It's just awesome. And I mean, I take this all in and I think, “God, what a blessing!” And it's like, don't let me take it for granted. Don't let me miss a moment of it.
LARRY (outside, on a horse): I can do nothing on my own. Just the Lord is in control of all things, which he--everything's his anyway. You're just here being the steward. So you've got to take care of what there is. If you want to be a sluggard and stay in the house, then you don't deserve it, and it'll get taken away from you. But he has blessed us. Every day you ask for just the guidance on how to go about it. Well, do I need to go check? And it's always there. He's always being the big patrón. That's all we've got.
(the Schutte family and others performing Linda Stasson’s “Sing Hallelujah” at the Lighthouse Christian Fellowship, Elko, Nevada)
Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming back.
12:22
HAL (over shots of Reata and of Jake Brown): This has been a time of big changes for Reata. When I first visited, she was working for her folks at the ranch. Within a year she moved to town, bought a house, and started a massage-therapy practice. Though she doesn't know it here at church, she's about to get married and move back to a ranch. Jake Brown is the cow boss on one of the big outfits north of Elko called the Spanish Ranch.
(Reata and Jake entering a home, where they got interviewed.)
HAL: So Jake, when did you look at Reata and say, “Hey, that might be someone to hang out with?”
JAKE BROWN: Oh, I don't know, it was probably, four or five years ago. But I never--I thought, ah, she's out of my league, and so I never even tried.
REATA (laughing): See, we thought the same thing about each other.
JAKE: I just, “hey, how are you,” and leave it at that, so.
HAL: Things move slow sometimes.
REATA: That's all right. It's been perfect timing, so.
JAKE: Yep.
HAL: Do you think you could, I mean, have you ever dated city kids?
REATA and JAKE (nodding): Mm-hmm.
HAL: What's it like?
REATA: Awful. They don't have any idea how to relate to us, or I dunno--for me anyway, that was. They thought, “Oh yeah, I can wear the pants, and I can wear the boots.” And it's like, “That's not where it's at. You have no clue how I was raised.” You know, I mean, it's so much more than the looks.
HAL: What do you want your kids to take from that you've got in your life?
REATA: Growing up on the ranch, definitely. That's one thing I would never give up for them--I would hope not anyway--and music.
HAL: When did music sort of ring a bell with you?
REATA: From my Dad when I was very young, 'cause he always played for my Mom. I remember him singing love songs to her, when we were about two and three and four. And he'd sing to us. My Dad.
HAL: Huh? He sang love songs to your mom all the time?
REATA: Mm-hmm .
HAL: That's really romantic.
REATA: Yeah, oh, Dad's a romantic, he is. Yep, all the songs and flowers. He'd get her wild flowers.
HAL: Really?
REATA: Yeah. A side of Dad you never knew.
HAL: Hunh, I didn't.
14:47
LARRY SCHUTTE, singing “Nighttime in Nevada,” by Richard W. Pascoe, Will Dulmage, H. O. Reilly Clint:
Nighttime in Nevada I'm dreaming
Of the old days, the desert, and you.
And I miss you when the campfires are gleaming,
And I wonder if you miss me too.
And I can see the Great Divide, trails we used to ride--
The only bit of heaven I knew.
When it's nighttime in Nevada I'm dreaming
Of the old days, the desert, and you.
I've been drifting since we roamed the ranges
Up to roaming when you went away
With the love for you that never changes
I hope that we will meet again someday.
When It's nighttime in Nevada I'm dreaming
Of the old days, the desert, and you.
And I miss you when the campfires are gleaming,
And I wonder if you miss me too.
(over shots of Larry weaving lariat ropes)
And I can see the Great Divide, trails we used to ride--
The only bit of heaven I knew
When it's nighttime in Nevada. . .
HAL: The Schutte family's love for each other, for the land and animals, and for their God, it overflows. Their songs are a reservoir of love.
Ooh, ooh, oh, oh, oh
16:45
HAL: Well, I've decided to head east across the country to visit a true-blue old-time cowboy named Glenn Ohrlin.
(Hal Cannon inserts a cassette into the player of the car he is driving, and Glenn Ohrlin’s voice begins singing “The Top Hand”)
This is all about a trip up the trail
Take you clean to Kansas
HAL: Glenn is revered everywhere as a man who knows the cowboy songs of the trail drives of the 1800s.
(Glenn Ohrlin’s voice continuing the song):
The ladies all adore him with his eight-dollar pants
HAL: It's a long journey, and it seems a little odd driving to the Ozarks of Arkansas to find the heart of cowboy tradition. But Glenn came here over 40 years ago when a guy could still get into good grazing country for four dollars an acre.
HAL: Glenn.
GLENN OHRLIN: Hey, Hal.
HAL: How you doing? It's good to see you.
GLENN: It's good to see you. Finally made it. You get lost coming up here?
HAL: No, went and got some boots.
GLENN: Oh, good. Boy, you sure need them now. Come on in.
HAL: Okie doke.
GLENN: I think I need a better. . .
HAL: God, what a great place. It sort of looks like an old western hacienda. I've known Glenn since the ‘70s and bought his first record when I was in high school.
GLENN (showing Hal a series of photographs in an album): Yeah, that's me there. I was about four, I suppose. I was born in '26, and this says ‘30. I was taking a guess at this date, so.
HAL: Uh, hunh. Is that you riding there?
GLENN: Yeah, uh, hunh. Yeah, that's in 1950.
HAL: Looks like you're on top of the world there.
GLENN: Yeah, right. I rode nine, tried out nine horses that day. That's where I broke my back in Tucson, in '48.
HAL: That's the picture of you going off?
GLENN: Yeah, uh, huh. I had the wildest.
HAL: That's you right there?
GLENN: That's my head, body, and feet. I had the wildest spurring lick in the world at that time, throwing my feet way over my head and dropping my spur in the top of their neck. And he was just too strong. He took the rigging away from me. I got a compression fracture, wore a cast for three months.
HAL: Glenn remembers every scene from his personal wild west with incredible clarity. His rodeo days seemed to resonate even more than the time he was honored by the President for his contribution to American Folk Art. Though he hasn't rodeoed in years, he still travels all over the country singing. And our Cowboy Poetry Gathering wouldn't be the same without him.
19:13
GLENN (playing guitar and singing Henry Herbert Knibbs’s “Boomer Johnson” to a Poetry Gathering audience):
Well, Mr. Boomer Johnson was a-getting old in spots.
You don't expect a bad man to go wrestling pans and pots.
Boomer done his share of killing but his draw was getting slow.
He quits a-punching cattle, and he goes to punching dough.
Well, the foreman up and hired him, thought the years had rode him tame,
But a snake don't get no sweeter by the changing of his name.
But say Boomer knew his business. He could cook to make you smile.
But he rustled up the fodder in a most peculiar style.
HAL: Glenn used to just sing for himself or his rodeo buddies until a folklorist named Archie Green came around in the early ‘60s and invited him to come to a college campus folk festival.
GLENN: Archie was backstage, and he says, “Are you nervous?” I said, ”No.” And he says, “Why aren't you nervous?” I says, “I don't think that chair is gonna buck me off.” “What about the crowd?” “They may like it or they may not, but I'll get paid anyways. It's way the easiest form of cowboying I know anything about.”
(Ohrlin’s song continues, but over shots of him at work on his ranch)
He drilled a hole plumb center every time his pistol spoke,
Till the can was full of doughnuts, and the shack was full of smoke.
Now killing folks and cooking ain't so very far apart.
I reckon that's why Boomer kept a-practicing his art.
With the front side of his pistol he could cut a pile that slick.
He rolled it with the barrel just to make the edges stick.
But somehow Boomer Johnson couldn't seem to understand
Why his shooting made us nervous when his cooking was so grand.
But he kept right on performing, and it came as no surprise--
He took to marking tombstones on the covers of his pies.
HAL: At 75, the satisfaction of a self-dependent life keeps Glenn going way past the age when most people hang it up and retire.
(Glenn continues his song)
. . . And I says, well thank you, no.
All I take this trip is coffee ‘cause my stomach it’s a wreck.
I could see the urge for killing swell the veins along his neck.
Scorn his grub, he strung some doughnuts on the barrel of his gun. . .
HAL: Glenn, what's a cattle call?
GLENN: Cattle? That's what they are, so that's what I call 'em. Had people come out here, wanted to look at the cattle, and I say, “They understand English.” And I'd say, “Would you cattle please come over here.” And they'd all come over.
(Glenn concludes the “Boomer Johnson” song)
. . . A row of smiling faces and another cook to hire
If he's working in some other world--and cooking is what I mean--
It's where they ain't got matches and they don't need kerosene.
HAL: Every song brings back memories of the cowboys and old timers who taught him the life and the music.
GLENN: Ollie Gilbert--she is long dead now--she had a thousand songs written down on a narrow strip of paper, like a type of grocery prices on, you know, on the old fashioned deal. And she had a thousand songs on that. And then she had another strip of paper with a thousand dirty jokes on it.
HAL: She knew a thousand songs and a thousand dirty jokes?
GLENN: She sure did. You'd pick one out, how's this one go?
HAL: So why do you think cowboys have music and other groups don't?
(Glenn has already off camera begun to play “Dos Arbolitos” on his guitar and continues during the rest of the conversation to play over shots of his hands picking the strings and shots of his ranch.)
GLENN: Well, I suppose isolation, you know. Gee, I spend a lot of time here just picking the guitar and learning songs and stuff.
HAL: How much time are you alone?
GLENN: Most of the time, unless I go to town for coffee and stuff like that. Once in a while I hear some philosopher telling on the tube what you ought to do to, you know, to get along with yourself. Usually I recognize what they're talking about, 'cause I've always done it, you know? And one of the things you do if you live alone, if you're not too damn far from people, just go where they are and visit for an hour or a half hour or something like that and then come home.
(Glenn Ohrlin sits alone along inside a community hall where another couple is dancing, while Ruth Collins and the Ozark Gang sing a snatch of Harlan Howard’s "Heartaches by the Number")
I never knew that I could hurt this way.
And heartache number two was when you did come back again.
You came back and never meant to stay.
HAL: So you've been here 46 years.
GLENN: Yeah.
HAL: To some people, do you think you're still a newcomer?
GLENN: Oh, yeah, uh huh.
HAL: Really?
GLENN: Sure.
HAL: Do you feel like you're an outsider here?
GLENN: No. I don't feel like an outsider, but I'll never be exactly like, you know, some folks here, I don't guess.
HAL: Yeah.
GLENN: Never really intended to. I kind of hung onto what I brought with me, so.
HAL: Yeah, I mean, this house is very different than any other house in the neighborhood. Every time I look around, I see a painted beam.
GLENN: Oh, yeah.
HAL: Or a carved door, I mean, it's artistic.
GLENN: Yeah, unh hunh. And there's a few people here that are. There's some people that really paint nice pictures and things, but the whole lifestyle is, I think, right here, the least artistic of any I've ever come across. In everyday things, you know. I think it might be something to do with the general religious idea here that you don't enjoy things too much. You're supposed to kind of suffer. I know a lady up the road here just drank sour milk so she wouldn't enjoy it too much. That's kind of pushing it, I think. I'm just total opposite of that, though.
GLENN (singing “The Cowboy’s Soliloquy” by Texas cowboy Allen McCandless, printed in a newspaper in 1885):
All day in the saddle on a prairie I ride.
Not even a dog, boys, to trot by my side.
My fire I must kindle from chips gathered round.
I boil my own coffee without being ground.
My books are the brooks, and my sermon's the stone.
My parson’s a wolf on a pulpit of bone.
My roof is the sky, and my floor is the grass.
My music's a lowing of herds as they pass.
But society brands me so savage and dark
That the Masons would bar me out of their lodge.
If I'd hair on my chin. . .
CANNON: Glenn knows solitude, but he's not lonely. I guess that's part of the pioneer spirit, striking out on your own alone. That's Glenn Ohrlin's song.
GLENN (concluding the song):
And the parson remarks from his pulpit of bones,
“Fortune favors those who look out for their own.”
28:28
HAL: Cowboy spirit and spirituality take on many forms. I'm headed to see Crow Indian Henry Real Bird up at his ranch in the Wolf Teeth mountains of Montana.
HENRY REAL BIRD: When you're in the fold, they say that you're close to the maker. I always think of it as being blessed.
HAL: Henry Real Bird and I were born in the same summer, but in two different worlds.
HENRY (over shots of him on horseback in the snow, moving a herd of horses, he sings his song):
I'm from the Wolf Teeth Mountains.
No one to call my own.
So I come here looking for you, Hannah.
Weh, oh, hey, oh, hey, oh.
Weh, oh, hey, oh, hey, oh.
Weh, oh, hey, oh, hey, oh.
Weh, Hannah.
Weh, Hannah.
Weh, Hannah..
HENRY: My grandpa taught me how to ride like that. Took me out there when I was young and
(over a shot of Henry seated at a table—head bent, eyes closed, with his arms stretched out on each side)
just flat ride them and close your eyes. And then he'd whip that thing, and he’d just go-- go jump over the sagebrush and everything else. And he just ride him like that. And I’m going. . .
HENRY sings his “Crow Chant” (over a shot again showing him riding)
My grandpa, he'd always say that the cowboy’s as close to being an Indian as you can ever be.
HAL (over a set of photos Henry and other men of the Poetry Gathering): I used to think that cowboys and Indians were mortal enemies. That was before Henry showed up at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering. I found that like cowboys, Indians raise cows to avoid punching a time clock. And of course there's that shared love of horses.
HENRY: You always want to belong somewhere. And me, I've never really thought of anything else. I mean, I just belong on a horse, and I've never wanted any other way of life, just hanging around the horse and no pressures. And that's what it's all about. Oh, any questions?
(scene shifts to Henry in an office with the telephone ringing) Good morning, Little Big Horn College, Real Bird speaking, how may I help you? Yeah, oh, okay.
CANNON: Yes, I do have a question. What's Henry doing in town working with kids at the local community college?
HENRY (speaking to kids in a classroom): The paper is freedom. The paper is freedom. This is what writing is all about, to me. You don't have to be afraid of anything on that paper. That's your paper. You can have anger in there if you want. And you can have beautiful feelings in there if you want. And you can have joy and you can have happiness and you can have peace. You can have whatever you want there.
HAL: It's almost like a wild bronc ride, following Henry's poetic thought process as he takes students along for the ride.
HENRY (speaking to students in the classroom): I was at the racetrack, and they had me down as a trainer. And this old man, Jimmy Dore--he's one of my clan uncles--and he come over and Jimmy. . .
(Henry begins recalling a conversation they had in Crow, telling what each of them said in Crow and translated into English)
I said, “Jimmy, “What are you doing? Usually you don't come to the racetrack,” I said. And he said, “Yeah, driftwood I am like. My heart’s way I can't do. I'm catchin' a ride.” That's what he said. And so I, at that time, I liked it so much, I gave him five dollars, even though I could have bought drinks with it. I gave him the five and asked him if I can use those words. And he said, “Yeah, give it. I give you those words. I give you those words and still ask for good thoughts for you.”
So, I thought about that driftwood in life. Me, I've been floating all over the place and man, I'm not really into it sometimes. And then it just sets me down here and then picks me up and takes me around.
(Henry begins rapidly reciting his poem “Driftwood Feelin’”)
How much longer
Do you want
To be in the wind?
Elk River's edge
There I'm standin’
Looking for a feelin’
In the wind
Feelin’ gotta roam
So I come down river, lookin’ around
Feelin’ got to roam
So I reach
In the roar of the water
For a feeling
In the wind.
Driftwood feelin’
Floatin’ down love river
Hearts way can't do
I'm catchin’ a ride
Floatin’ down love river
Driftwood feelin’
Floating down love river.
Heart’s way can't do.
I'm catchin’ a ride
Floatin’ down love river.
Somewhere
Between the reflection and the stars
Is the feelin’ of life in love
Where you could hear
The stars in the wind
Feelin’, twinklin’, and flutterin’
In cottonwood leaves
Just a feelin’ in the wind
From yesterday from days gone by.
Can I have tomorrow
From yesterday, that I borrow?
Driftwood feelin’
Floatin’ down love river
Hearts way can't do
I'm catchin’ a ride
Floatin’ down love river.
Driftwood feelin’
Floatin’ down love river.
Hearts way can't do.
I'm catchin’ a ride
Floatin’ down love river.
HENRY (over shots of him riding his horse in the snow, he sings his “Lone Star Woman”):
Driving down Wind River
I rode you down a road to home
With the lone star woman
And mama back in town
When she was mine
She talked of love
HENRY: Whatever you like, just like, if you like to see skyscrapers and listen to the Dow Jones report. I mean, that's what you get. And so out here we like to see the sun come out between the trees and the sky and like to see the sunset between the trees and the sky again. And that's what it's all about.
Whip tidy, idy, ah, aye, oh
A lone star woman whispered love
Tucked it away for the dawn
A lone star woman and mama
A lone star woman back in town
Whip tidy, idy, ah, aye, oh
Whip tidy, idy, ah, aye, oh
HAL: So, tell us where we are.
HENRY: You're on the West Bank of the Little Big Horn. Right here, that's the Little Big Horn right there, yeah. And that's Medicine Tail Coolee on up there. And then Custer come down the flat here, tried to cross the river here. And then the story is he went down, and the rest of his men were chased on up to Custer Hill there.
HAL: I'm honored to be invited to the Real Bird Sweat Lodge. A sweat lodge is an outdoor sauna full of prayer and observance, sort of like a Crow Indian song. I can appreciate it, but I'll never know the depth of tradition I'm being led into.
HENRY: Today, my little brother, we're going to bring one of our clan uncles in and have him pray today. And that's what we're working on. We therapy in a way, we're free to talk any way we want, and it stays here.
HAL: Yeah.
HENRY: And so we laugh and the men, we pray and everything, but we laugh and just forget about the problems of the world.
HAL: Yeah.
HENRY: For a while. And, that's the fire that we have here. And we welcome everybody.
HAL: Yeah.
HENRY: Yeah, we've got to gather some, get some water here.
HAL: Okay.
HENRY: There you go. Just set it along the fire there and make sure the handle's on the outside.
HAL (as he and Henry sit outside near a fire talking): Right. Henry lives the rituals that have been handed down from his ancestors, but he doesn't stop there. He uses poetry to explore back to a time before there were even words.
HENRY: I want to go as far back in time as I can and then to describe it and then to come back. And so then (beginning to recite lines of poetry that had come to him),
At one time, a long time ago when silence was not a word, there was nothing but air that's black and all shadow, the Dark Night.
When silence was,
and not a word,
there was nothing but air that's black
and all shadow,
the Dark Night.
And then it was old man Kyle
that came out and howled
and then going on like that. But, on that one there, when I--I'll never forget that--it must've been about two in the morning, I thought,
At one time, a long time ago,
it was easy,
but when silence was, and not a word.
So I got in the car and went over to this friend of mine and I woke him up and he let me in and told him, “Dwayne, I got it, this is it. I mean, I went as far back as I can now.”
And he said it, it was, I mean, beautiful--it's beautiful. I mean, he got it, he'd say. And so, so we, so I do that. And so, I mean, I just go out and search for thoughts and rhymes and just move around like that.
HAL: Henry Real Bird's entire life, every word is a poem and a prayer. He's a cowboy Indian, but deep down he sings the song of the food gatherer. Henry tells me about his ancestors and their ceremonies to entice entire herds of buffalo to the cliff's edge. It's almost as though he were there.
HENRY: And they can still hear the thundering of the hooves and trembling through me. And I am one with my mother Earth. My heart beats one with my mother Earth from the many hoof beats as the buffalo shoot out of the horizon to ricochet off the fences of smoke. And the buffalo jumped off and then we bloody the water. And then we put the best of food in our mouth and grease the edges of our mouths. And when our dogs are eating good, we too are eating good. I am a food gatherer. That's who I am.
38:35
HAL (as he drives): As I leave Henry's ranch, I realize how ancient and universal the song of the food gatherer is. There's so many easy answers to why the cowboy sings, like cowboys have too much time on their hands, or they're tricked into singing by the rhythm of their horse's canter. Maybe they hear too many coyotes howling at the moon. Now I'm off to make my final visit to a songwriter named Stephanie Davis. She moved back to Montana a half-dozen years ago, after a stInt in the country-music fast lane of Nashville.
STEPHANIE DAVIS (singing “Prairie Lullaby,” a song by her and Don Edwards, shots of her doing ranch work):
When shadows creep across the hills
And purple streaks the sky,
When cattle bunch up closer for the night,
That's when you'll hear the whippoorwill
Start singing sweet and high,
That's when you'll hear the prairie lullaby.
The breezes play, the branches sway.
Somewhere a coyote cries.
Ah ee oh lay dee, it's the prairie lullaby.
STEPHANIE: Everybody has the feeling of being home, when they're where they belong, even if it's not necessarily where they were born. And the minute I drove up the road here, it's a funny thing, I had my Dad and half my family looking for a little place for me, and I told him what I was looking for. And one day my Dad called me and he said, "I found your place." And I got on the plane and I came out to see, it was in my price range and everything, crossed the cattle guard. And I knew that was my place, immediately. I said, I'll take it. It felt great. And it still has that feeling. I'll come back from a trip or something, and I'm home.
HAL: So you're a rider. How can, I mean, a lot of people think “manure.”
STEPHANIE: It's the smell of home for me. It's the smell of the, when they cut the hay, the different seasons mean different chores. It's the whole life is tied in with the weather. When you live in a city or so far removed from the land, I found that it robbed my soul. I was disoriented.
(her song continues in the background over shots of ranch life)
It's the prairie lullabye
I'm writing stuff like I've never written. A whole new style of writing. A whole new, it's like I'm more just writing down what I'm hearing, instead of sitting there trying to make something out of nothing.
STEPHANIE (composing a song, sings a phrase and writes down lines):
Then she smiles and turns her face up toward
The morning sky for oh--
There's a crocus in the snow
'Cause it's been six hard months today
STEPHANIE: I think I was born rhyming words. I remember early--three, four years old-- I opened the refrigerator door and was rhyming all the vegetables that I could see. I was just rhyming all the time. I don't know where it came from. Probably drove my family crazy. And grew up about 30 miles from here. And my grandparents homesteaded just over the hill here. And they had a beautiful ranch. And the sheep market bottomed out in the ‘40s, I guess it was. And they had to sell it for a pittance. I suppose a lot of families that lose their places and move off of 'em have that feeling of being displaced.
So, fly your wild birds back and sing
HAL: So, is, you know, coming back here, reclaiming that in a way?
STEPHANIE: It's the most beautiful, ironic fairytale for me. When I was five years old, I told my parents, I said, “I'm gonna live on a ranch, and I'm gonna play music.” And of course they laughed. They thought that was funny. And I did too. I never saw how it could possibly actually happen. I sure didn't think you could make a living at it. It just was something I had to do. I remember I told people, “Well, I'm gonna move to Nashville and be a songwriter.” And people said, “You're crazy. Don't do it. It's impossible. Forget it.” Including my own family--they said, “What? Have you lost your mind completely?” And I had probably $200, $300 to my name. Just moved there, didn't know a soul, had nothing, no idea. Just had a few terrible songs.
HAL: Stephanie was a starving songwriter for years before talent and gambler's luck finally paid off. No one was more surprised than she was when success hit.
STEPHANIE: I got my first check and I took it to the bank and I tried to deposit it in the automatic deposit, and it rejected, it, because I had only had about $9 in my account ever since, so they thought it was some fraud. And I had to go into the bank and prove that that was actually a legitimate income.
HAL: What song was that?
STEPHANIE: That was from “Wolves.” The song that I wrote that Garth Brooks recorded.
January's always bitter
But, Lord, this one beats all
The wind ain't quit for weeks now
And the drifts are ten feet tall
I been all night drivin' heifers
Closer in to lower ground
Then I spent the mornin' thinkin'
About the ones the wolves pulled down
Charlie Barton and his family
Stopped today to say goodbye
He said the bank was takin' over
The last few years were just too dry. . . .
STEPHANIE: It's a song about a guy losing his ranch. And I never thought anyone would be interested in it, Nashville wise. I just kind of wrote it for myself. And there was a—It was the kind of the farm crisis of the ‘80s were going on back here. And that was on my mind. And--.
HAL: “Wolves” is a lightly veiled story Stephanie's family knew all too well. Sometimes you can't write by the formula. It has to be mainlined from the heart.
STEPHANIE: The nature of Nashville is that it's kind of a, a factory of music. It's an assembly line. And I signed on to work at a publishing company as a staff writer. And that means it's a big machine that needs to be fed. I was a cog in the wheel writing songs, allegedly, for other people. And the little voice in me kept saying, “Stephanie, this isn't right. This doesn't feel good.” But I would still make it go into that cubicle and write a song for so-and-so who needed one. And I needed the money and, and you know, I would try to write something, and they weren't even that good. I just didn't feel good about what I was doing. And when I moved back here, I was so burnt out I didn't have anything to say. I couldn't hardly make myself look at my guitar.
(singing the end of the song)
Oh, Lord, keep me from bein'
The one the wolves pulled down
47:52
(upbeat string band music, the scene shift to kids at play and people arriving at a country church)
HAL: Tell me about your neighborhood.
STEPHANIE: This is a wonderful place to live. It's a bunch of Finnish and Norwegian immigrants, a lot of fourth-generation Montana farmers and ranchers. And those are my favorite people on this earth. They are quiet, humble people who would do anything for you, whether they know you or not. Geez, a, a hailstorm can come through and in twenty minutes their entire wheat crop is finished, and they'll just shrug and say, “Well, next year.” Well, you'll meet 'em. We'll go play a concert, and you'll see what I mean. They're just the salt of the earth.
(inside the church people gather for a church supper and to enjoy music)
WOMAN (returning thanks before the meal): Dear Lord, we thank you for this food and let us have a good time tonight and enjoy each other's company. We ask this thing in Jesus’ name, Amen. Eat!
MAN: All right.
(all fill plates from food laid out for them and then sit and eat at scattered tables, then applaud as the program begins)
STEPHANIE: Thanks everybody for coming. Here's a song, it's a new one. A lot of you don't know that I'm trolling for song ideas when I talk to you guys. So, here's one I asked several people, Slim and Joy there and Mark and Sue, I said, now what is it about Montana? Why do you like living here? It's funny, they all said the same thing. They said, I don't know. So, so I made a song about it and here it is.
I got nothing against Texas
Lone Star Beer and Western Swing
And I've always loved Nevada
When the desert blooms in spring
New York's known to be exciting
Alabama mannerly
But there's something 'bout Montana
Makes it where I've gotta be
HAL: The feeling of community flickers bright, like the candles that line the window sills of the White Bird School. Stephanie weaves a spell spun from heartfelt songs, swing tunes, and even some down to earth cowboy humor.
STEPHANIE (standing at a microphone and reciting verse):
Tourists, he said to his packer friend, Ted,
That's one bunch it's best to let be,
But should you get tangled with one
for God's sake, don't ever bring up your stud fee.
Think of 'em as a coiled rattler.
Don't be fooled by their manners and class.
And when one of them starts into swinging her purse,
Duck first and then cover your ass.
(the audience laughs)
I moved back home here, oh four or five years ago, after just getting beat up by the music business, and I picked that place where I live up there, 'cause it's at the end of the road, and I wanted to just hide from the world and lick my wounds, but you guys didn't know that. And you came up with casseroles and taught me how to run the tractor and make pickles and plant gardens and you didn't know it, but you were really nursing me back to health. And I don't know if I've ever really said thank you to you. So, I'm saying thank you to you right now. And we've got one last tune for you, and we really need you to sing on this, as only you White Birders can.
STEPHANIE (singing and playing guitar, with Hal Cannon accompanying on a mandolin):
Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
HAL: “Home on the Range” is an anthem of sorts. Most people know it, and it's been the finale to countless nights around the campfire. It's about the Western spirit of hope, living the good life.
(all singing, followed by a shot of GLENN OHRLIN singing it)
Home, home on the range
HAL: I have to admit, there's lots of reasons cowboys sing. Glenn Ohrlin inherited his song from a line of horsemen going back to the trail drives. But it's not just tradition. There are new songs for the West, grounded in its land and people. We're always rewriting the verses.
LARRY SCHUTTE (singing to the same tune):
Often at night when the heavens are bright
From the light flickering stars . . .
HAL: I keep thinking how Waddie Mitchell answered my question with a question, “Why does a frog croak?” Maybe it's just that obvious. Cowboys sing because it's natural for them to sing. But that brings up a bigger question. Why don't more of us have a song?
HENRY REAL BIRD (singing more of a song he sang earlier):
Weh, oh, hey, oh, hey, oh
And June was blessed to be a part of the West
And he's likely to stay till eternity falls
Where pony transform to a savvy cow horse
And his fires will be on a Little Big Horn
Weh, oh, hey, oh, hey, oh, hey, oh
Weh, oh, hey, oh, hey, ah, hey, oh
STEPHANIE (still in the White Bird Church, performing with HAL, new words to “Give me a home”):
Oh, give us spring rains
Grassy waves ‘cross the plains
And a fair market price in the fall
A bureaucrat who our permits will renew
And a ban on urban sprawl
(all laugh and join in)
Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard
A discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
HAL: How about another time?
Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
STEPHANIE: Thank you, everyone.
CREDITS (rolling over guitar music)
Why the Cowboy Sings
Featuring
The Larry Schutte Family
Glenn Ohrlin
Henry Real Bird
Stephanie Davis
Produced and Directed by
Hal Cannon and Taki Telonidis
Director of Photography
Douglas Monroe
Recorded by
Taki Telonidis
Edited by
Bill Lauer with Taki Telonidis
Sound Mix
William Montoya
Written by
Hal Cannon
Executive Producers
Scott Chaffin, John Howe, Elizabeth Searles
Consultants
Nancy Kelly, Nancy Green, Chris Simon, Robert Hawk
Original Concept
Sherry Kafka Wagner
Additional Photography
Bill Brussard, Taki Telonidis, Hall Cannon, Nancy Green
Production Assistants
Angie DeCola, Keri Watson, Michelle Davie, Travis Manning
Also Appearing
Buckaroos at the Spanish Ranch
Wallace McRae
Doug Mitchell and an angry bull
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
Waddie Mitchell
Chuck Baltazar
Sam Marvel
Jake Brown
Students at Little Big Horn College
Richard Real Bird
Folks from the White Bird, Montana Community
The Jimmy Wakely Trio, used with permission from Cube International
Thanks to
Steven Green, Meg Glaser, Charlie Seemann,
Debbie Fant, Kelly Schrock, Lucy Tamera Miller,
William Matthews, Scott Hansen, Chris Machen,
George Gund III
University of Utah President Bernard Machen
Fred Esplin, Larry Smith, Paige Meriwether,
Angela Butler, Bill Gordon,
David Krummenacher, Regina Schaub
Special Thanks to
Dick Burton, Teresa Jordan, Jacquie Telonidis
Tom Carter, Lewis Downey, TV Specialists,
Kim Shelton, Diane Orr, Raymond Grant,
Mary Yelanjian, Dudley Cocke, Kenji Yamamoto,
Anneliese Cannon, Gretchen Reynolds
Music
“Prairie in the Sky” by Mary McCaslin,
sung by Tom Russell, ©1975 Folklore Music (ASCAP)
“Git Along Little Pony” by the Jimmy Wakely Trio
“The Night Herding Song” sung by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
“Hittin’ the Trail Tonight” by Bruce Kiskaddon
and Hal Cannon, sung by Buck Ramsey
“Wild Buckaroo” by Curly Fletcher,
sung by Glenn Ohrlin
“Cowboys Waltz” played by Hal Cannon and Larry Schutte
“La Primera” by Ian Tyson, sung by Larry Schutte
“Nevada” by Reata Brown
“Sing Hallelujah” by Linda Stasson, sung by the
Lighthouse Christian Fellowship, Elko, NV
“Nighttime in Nevada” by Pascoe, Dulmage and Clint,
sung by Larry Schutte
“The Top Hand” sung by Glenn Ohrlin
“Boomer Johnson” sung by Glenn Ohrlin
“Dos Arbolitos” played by Glenn Ohrlin
“Heartaches by the Number” by Harlan Howard,
sung by Ruth Collins and the Ozark Gang
“The Cowboys Soliloquy” written by Allen McCanless,
sung by Glenn Ohrlin
“I’m From the Wolf Teeth Mountains”
by Henry Real Bird
“Crow Chant” sung by Henry Real Bird
“Lone Star Woman” by Henry Real Bird
“Prairie Lullaby” by Stephanie Davis,
Used by permission of EMI Blackwood Music Inc.
“Somethin’ ‘Bout Montana” by Stephanie Davis
“Saturday Night at the Whitebird School”
by Stephanie Davis
“Home on the Range” with additional verses by
Stephanie Davis and Henry Real Bird
Songs Public Domaine or used by permission
Composers perform their own songs except where noted
Additional music by Hal Cannon
Dedicated to the memory of cowboy singer Buck Ramsey
A Western Folklife Center Film
Produced in association with KUED
This program was produced by the Western Folklife Center
which is solely responsible for its content.
©Western Folklife Center 2002
