Price codeC
World, traditional, folkCatalogue no. 2055
The U-S-U Range
Music: Trad. arr. Sheena Phillips, Words: Trad.
Voicing: TBarB, piano
Performance time approx: 2m 30s
Range T: g – d' / Bar: c – d' / B: A – c'
Price code: C
Complexity:
This piece is part of the set "Three cowboy songs".
The set also includes:
The words of this song were collected by Alan Lomax (1915 – 2002), and they’re set to the strong bluesy tune of the mining song Days of Forty-Nine. Baritones carry the tune, accompanied by a jaunty piano part and simple vocal harmonies in tenor and bass lines.
Oh, come cowboys and listen to my song.
I’m in hopes I’ll please you and not keep you long;
I’ll sing you of songs you may think strange
About West Texas and the U-S-U range.
You may go to Stamford and there see a man
Who wears a white shirt and is asking for hands.
He will put you in a wagon and be off in the rain,
You will go up on Tongue River on the U-S-U range.
You will drive up to the ranch and there you will stop.
It’s a little sod house with dirt all on top.
You will ask what it is and they will tell you out plain:
That it’s the ranch house on the U-S-U range.
You are up in the morning at the day break
To eat cold beef and U-S-U steak,
And out to your work no matter if it’s rain
And that’s the life on the U-S-U range.
You work hard all day and you come in at night,
You turn your horse loose, for they say it’s all right,
And set down to supper and begin to complain
Of the chuck that you eat on the U-S-U range.
Now, kind friends, I must leave you, I no longer can remain,
I hope I have pleased you and given you no pain.
But when I am gone, don’t think me strange,
For I have been a cow-puncher on the U-S-U range.
Traditional American