Show t 7 n iaz 21 5 n f 0 I 1 on the western trail A cowboy group the work of the f famous amous woman sculptor culp tor sally james farnham recently exhibited in new york by ELMO SCOTT WATSON nl NE of the current broadway stage successes Is a play which bears the title of green grow the lilacs and sophisticated gotham which us usually bally think a song bong Is worth singing unless it ca came in e out of tin pan alley Is delighted with the songs tn in that play piny and the majority of them lad bad their or origin not in new york but in the southwest they are songs which the cowboys used to sing I 1 this incident Is another example of the trier increasing easing An interest terest ot of americans la in the folklore of their country that interest Jilter cst ling has manifested itself in varl qua us forysin form sIn M the popularity of the spirituals of the south in tho the revival of singing of ballads b of past generations ballads which prove conclusively elusively clu that although many of them trace back directly to the old english ballads tal lads america had a native balladry and in the wider alon of the legends of paul bunyan pecos bill and john henry myth heroes created in the fertile imaginations of the lumberjacks lumber jacks the cowboys ind the negro railroad workers respectively ively the play referred to above takes its name from a song green grow the lilacs which has been sung in the southwest for generations its origin la Is yelled veiled in obscurity one critic has ventured the opinion that it traces its ancestry back to robert hums burns poem green grow the rashes it if so perhaps somewhere in the line of descent may be found a song popular with the american soldiers during the 1 1 mexican war green grow the rushes hushes 01 and there Is a legend that the mexican came for americans grin goes Is a corruption of the words green grows another other of the songs of this play which Is said to have been nn an old favorite in the southwest hence was well known in oklahoma the native state of lynn riggs author of the play to Is my name Is sam hall 1 there Is no doubt about the origin of this song for forit it comes from london where it was a cellar ditty in 1848 W 0 ROSS boss a scotch low comedian was singing in cider cellars in maiden lane covent gardens the original incidentally ImI dentally of back kitchen in pen der lenn ints ls and my name Is sam rall hall was one of 0 his hits how did this song find its way to the old indian territory did some adventurous cockney carry it there or did some disgraced younger son who could not live in england and who had fled to the american frontier where no questions were asked about abou t a mans past first sing it along the banks of the canadian or the cimarron Cl marron no one knows 1 but the cowboys once sang any it on the oklahoma range and it to their version slightly changed from the original english version which Is belne being sung ou broadway today in reality though this Is not so unusual for nn an examination of the collection of old cowboy son songs gs made by john A lomax of texas several years ago go will show that many of the favorites among the cowboys especially those of the more sen sentimental timen tat type and the cowboy was strong for the song ong which dripped with sentimentality 1 closely resemble some of the old english ballads and probably trace from them some typical ones oncy given in the lomax collection iro aro those which bear the titles borl bon we black bess fair fannie moore ter her 7 white hile bosom baroll baro and young char charlotte r 1 0 t tt e falore than that investigators of tM type of folk song eone nave have revealed th the baft fact tw of the best known re cowboy songs are nothing more than adaptations of sentimental ballads ot of an earlier day this la is true of one 0 of the most famous of them all a 1 song bong variously known as aa the dying I 1 cowboy the cowboys lament and the lone prairie a song of innumerable verses and of many variations both as to the wording of the different stanzas and the chorus w which aich follows follow s each stanza in practically all versions the first stanza Is the same oh ob bury me not on the lone lona prairie these 0 o words rame came low and mournfully TT from ro m the pallid lips ot of a youth who lay on his dying bed at the close of day by making allowance for much local color it Is easy to see how the lone prairie song was adapted from the song the ocean burial words by W IL II saunders music by 0 N allen alien which appears in the nightingale a book of songs for Juve juvenile mile Cl classes ases public schools and seminaries e compiled 0 to by W 0 and il 11 S perkins and published by ditson in 1860 the first verse of the ocean burial tells how 0 bury me not in the deep deep sea the words canle came low and mourn mournfully full y prom from the pallid UPS lips of a youth wh who 0 lay on hia cabin couch at close of day 41 ay and its other numerous verses describe the deathbed deat libed scene minutely and with a wealth of detail only of course the scenes are laid on the deep deep sea instead of the lone prairie e e nearly as famous a cowboy song as the lone prairie Is another also variously called the cowboys lament and the dying cowboy which has this chorus oh beat the drum slowly and ala y the tha afe lowly play the march as aa you carry m me 0 alon along g take m me e to the churchyard and lay the sod oft oer me for rm im a young cowboy I 1 know ive done wrong wrone different authorities on cowboy songs and other native american ballads credit the authorship of tills this song to various persons and the usual statement is that it appeared on the ranges in the early eighties although Althou gli it Is difficult to determine the authorship of a ballad since such a song usually represents the contribution of a succession of amateur bards rather than the work of a single poet it Is my belief that as nearly as the authorship of the cowboys lament can be determined credit for it belongs belonga to the late F 11 II maynard of colorado springs colo an old time cowboy here is his story as aa he told it to me several years ago during the winter whiter of 1870 I 1 was waa working tor for a grimes outfit which had started arted north with a trall trail herd from matagorda bay texas we were wintering the herd on the salt fork of the arkansas river on the border of kansas and indian territory waiting for the spring sprine market to open at wichita one of the favorite songs of the cowboys in those days was called the dying girls lament the story of a girl who had been betrayed by her loyer lover and who lay dying in a hospital I 1 dont remember all of the song but it besan began something like this aph photo fe s 31 As I 1 walked down by st cameo ames hospital st james es hospital so 0 o early on no del day etc etc 1 I had bad often amused myself by trying I 1 ng to write verse and one dull winter day in camp to while away the time I 1 began writing a poem which could bo be sung to the tune of the dying girls lament I 1 made it a dying ranger or or cowboy instead of a dying girl and had the scene in tom sher mans barroom instead of a hospital tom sherman was a noted char ac acter ter in the old cattle trail days a ba big strapping fellow six feet six or six feet seven tall who first ran a dance hall and saloon in great bend in 1873 and then moved to dodge city where he ran the same sort of place until some time in the 1804 all of the cowboys who came up from texas knew tom sherman after I 1 had finished the new words I 1 sang it to the boys in our outfit they liked it and began singing it it became popular with the boys boya in other outfits who heard it after we had taken our herd to market in wichita the next spring and from that time on I 1 heard it sung sting everywhere on the range and trall so the cowboys lament is another example of a favorite cowboy song which was an adaptation of an earlier ballad mr maynards maynardi Mayn ards version written in 1870 and thus antedating other versions by five and possibly ten years lad had for its first verse the following As aa I 1 rods rode down by torn tom barroom by tom shermans Sher mans barroom so 10 early one day there I 1 espied a handsome young ranger all AH wrapped in white linen in as cold an a the clay 11 1 I tee sea by your outfit that youre a ranger the words worda that he said bald as a I 1 went riding ridi I 1 g by come sit bit down beside me and hear bear my sad mad story im shot through the breast and know I 1 must die CHORUS then murle the drums and play the dead march play the tha dead march an am im carried along take me to t the churchyard god and lay the bod od oer me im a young ranger and know ive done wrong the version of this song as given in lomars collection and as it Is often re reprinted printe d starts out As I 1 walked out in the streets of 0 laredo As A I 1 walked out in laredo one day I 1 spied a poor cowboy wrapped up in white linen wrapped up in white whit linen ao ai cold as an the clay 0 beat the dru drum slowly and play the fife lowly play the dead march as you carry me m alonar take me to the gr gren green en valley there lay the sod oer roe me for im a young cowboy and I 1 know ive done wrong I 1 see ee by your that you tire are a cowboy these worda he did say gay as a I 1 boldly topped stepped by co come tit sit down beside roe me and hear roy my sad story I 1 I 1 was shot in the breast and I 1 know I 1 mut die worn from which w it will be seen that in the years in which the fume fame of this 11 poor P 0 0 r cowboy who done wrong has spread the scene of his untimely de raise has been changed to lar cdo texas but before it Is too late 1 I want to register this footnote to bli tory and say that it took place in dodge city kan kani I I 1 know because the man who killed him blin in a song told we me so oo I 1 IS a 1111 1921 otro War tarn no waw union |