Red River Shore; Morgan 1937;
[From Folksongs Of North America 1960, Alan Lomax, and text as recorded by Art Thieme. This is a cowboy version of the "Shore" ballads from Texas-- the Lomax recording is available from the Library of Congress and is found at bottom of page.
R. Matteson 2014]
Art Thieme: It came from Alan Lomax's singing and from his book Folksongs Of North America. The verse with "Hard is the fortune of all womankind..." shows up in this cowboy version of the ballad "Earl Brand" (Child #7)
THE RED RIVER SHORE- Text as recorded by Art Thieme. See text below for version collected by John A. Lomax for the Library of Congress from Mrs. Minta Morgan of Bells, Texas, in 1937.
At the foot of yonders mountain where the fountain does flow,
There's a fond creation where the soft winds do blow,
There lived a fair maiden, she's the one I adore,
She's the one I will marry on the Red River shore.
I asked her old father would he give her to me,
"No, sir, she won't marry no cowboy," said he,
So I jumped on my broomtail and away I did ride,
Leaving my true love on the Red River side.
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind,
And in this letter these words you will find,
"Come back to me darlin', you're the one I adore,
You're the one I will marry on the Red River shore.
Well, I jumped on my broomtail and away I did ride,
To marry my true love on the Red River side,
But her dad learned our secret and with twenty and four,
Came to fight this young cowboy on the Red River shore.
I drew my pistol, spun 'round and around,
Six men were wounded and seven were down,
No use for an army of twenty and four,
I'm bound for my true love on the Red River shore.
Hard is the fortune of all womankind,
Always controlled and always confined,
Controlled by their parents until they be wives,
Then a slave to their husbands for the rest of their lives.
At the foot of yonder mountain...(repeat first verse)
________________________
SOURCE: Folkways on Bear Creek
FOLKSONGS OF NORTH-AMERICA (p. 398, 399 and 54) by Alan Lomax, © Alan Lomax, 1960, Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY
He rode till he came in three miles of the place,
The he turned himself around,
And there he espied some seven iron men
Come hastening from the town
Get down, get down, Lady Margaret, he said,
And hold the bridle in your hand,
Till I turn back to yonder's green,
And fight them seven iron men . . .
These verses occur in an American forum of the ancient Anglo-Scandinavian ballad Hildebrand or Earl Brand, a tragic tale of bride capture. The Bold Soldier, a comic eighteenth century descendant of that ancient piece, gave rise to the present song which contains the basic plot of hundreds of western films -- the story of a poor, but honest cowpuncher who runs away with the rancher's of squatter's daughter. It also hints at the solution life provided for the conflict between the squatters and the ranchers that troubled the plains country for a generation.
The cowboys had gentled the great American desert, and millions of square miles of virgin grain-land invited the land-hungry people of the East. They came with a rush. Between 1879 and 1890 the population of Kansas grew from 300,000 to a million and a half -- of Texas from 800,000 to two million and a quarter. Other prairie states developed at the same speed. The plains passed out of the control of the rancher kings into the hands of the settlers, but not before a good deal of blood had been shed.
The Settlers' barbed-wire fences doomed the open range. Cattlemen cut the wire and shot at posthole diggers. But the antagonism between the two groups ran deeper than the land and politics. Two opposing ways of life were in conflict. The cowboy spent his money freely and welcomed all strangers at the chuck wagon. He liked a good horse, a good time, a bottle of whiskey, a pretty girl, and he would risk his life to defend his honour. He despised the nester, or squatter, as a poor rider, a penny pincher, a coward, a thick-skinned peasant, and a man who sometimes refused hospitality or asked to be paid for a meal. The nesters hated and feared the swashbuckling cowboys, who carried guns, mistreated their horses, quarreled over trifles, preferred the saloon to the church, wasted their money, and had scant regard for either property or propriety.
Sooner of later, however, a cowboy would see some nester girl 'who was prettier than a calf looking through a paling fence', or he would notice how 'the pore little bare-footed thing made a five-toed made a five-toed track on her way to Sunday school'. Next day he might ride up to a sod shanty, pitch her little brother a half-dollar to open the gate for him and present the family with half a beef out of his bosses herd. If things went smoothly, this lonesome cowboy who saw a woman maybe once in nine months, and whose steady diet consisted of sourdough bread, beefsteak, and coffee, might be sitting down to a meal of smothered chicken, hot biscuits and home-made jelly, fresh vegetables. buttermilk, and apple pie, while a certain feminine heart began to gallop under a polka-dot dress. The deed was as good as done, and the Wild West would soon lose another cowboy to the nesters.
THE RED RIVER SHORE- Text as collected by John A. Lomax for the Library of Congress from Mrs. Minta Morgan of Bells, Texas, in 1937.
At the foot of yon mountain, where the fountain doth flow,
there's a fond creation and a soft wind doth blow.
There lives a fair maiden, she's the one I adore;
She's the one I will marry on the Red River shore.
I asked her old father if he's give her to me,
'No sir, she shan't marry no cowboy,' said he.
So I jumped on my bronco and away I did ride,
A-leaving my true love on the Red River side.
She wrote me a letter and She wrote it so kind
and in that letter these words you could find.
'Come back to me, darling, you're the one I adore.
You're the one I will marry on the Red River shore.'
So I jumped on my bronco and away I did ride
to marry my true love on the Red River side.
But her dad knew the secret and with twenty and four
come to fight this young cowboy on the Red River shore.
I grabbed my six-shooter, spun around and around
Till six men were wounded and seven were down.
No use for an army of twenty and four,
I'm bound for my true love on the Red River shore.
Such is the fortune of all womankind,
They are always controlled, they are always made mind.
Controlled by their parents until they are wives,
Then slaves to their husbands the rest of their lives.