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Hear a synthesized realisation
This piece is the last in the set Three cowboy songs
The first piece is The U-S-U Range
If you don't want to buy the whole set, then you can buy Tall men riding individually using the link on this page.
The words of Tall Men Riding are from the 20th century genre of ‘cowboy poetry’ written nostalgically by people looking back to the days of ranching. Omar Barker (1894 - 1985) was born on a small ranch in New Mexico and became a full-time writer, producing hundreds of poems and stories about the dying lifestyle of the cattle rancher. The baritones have the tune, accompanied homophonically by the basses, while the tenors sing an inter-weaving counter-melody.
Words
This is the song that the night birds sing As the phantom herds trail by, Horn by horn where the long plains fling Flat miles to the Texas sky:
Oh, the high hawk knows where the rabbit goes, And the buzzard marks the kill, But few there be with eyes to see The Tall Men riding still.
They hark in vain on the speeding train For an echo of hoofbeat thunder, And the yellow wheat is a winding sheet For cattle trails plowed under.
Hoofdust flies at the low moon's rise, And the bullbat's lonesome whir Is an echoed note from a longhorn throat Of a steer, in the days that were.
Inch by inch time draws the cinch, Till the saddle will creak no more, And they who were lords of the cattle hordes Have tallied their final score.
This is the song that the night birds wail Where the Texas plains lie wide, Watching the dust of a ghostly trail, Where the phantom Tall Men ride!
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