Utah Phillips 1976
Cattle-driving trail active 1866-80s stretched from central TX north through NM and CO to Cheyenne WY. Finest Kind: “This Bruce (“U. Utah”) Phillips classic depicts the lot of the chuckwagon cook (“the old woman, in cowboy lingo) on the cattle drive from the upper Brazos River in West Texas, through New Mexico to Denver, Colorado. The trail with the romantic- sounding name was blazed by two Texas cattlemen, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving”
Finest Kind: https://ianrobb1.bandcamp.com/track/goodnight-loving-trail
https://ianrobb1.bandcamp.com/track/goodnight-loving-trail
Too old to wrangle or ride on the swing, You beat the triangle and you curse everything. If dirt was a kingdom, then 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 the low 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 liniments, too, You can do anything that a doctor can do, Except find a cure for your own god damned stew The campfire’s gone out and the coffee’s all gone, The boys are all up and they’re raising the dawn. You’re still sitting there, lost in a song. I know that some day I’ll be just the same, Wearing an apron instead of a name. There’s nothing can change it, there’s no one to blame For the desert’s a book writ in lizards and sage, Easy to look like an old torn out page, Faded and cracked with the colors of age.