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The E.L. Simons Folk Song Collection

 Songs Streets Of Laredo (Cowboy's Lament)
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Streets of Laredo (Cowboy's Lament)

Time: 1:38
Listen (.mp3@128 kbps)

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Lyrics
"I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,"
These words he did say as I boldly stopped by.
"Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story;
I'm shot in the breast and I know I must die.

"Once in my saddle I used to go dashing,
Once in my saddle I used to be gay,
I first took to rambling and then took to gambling,
Got into a fight and it's now to my grave.

"Go beat the drum lowly and play the fife slowly,
And play the dead march as you bear me along;
Bear me to the grave yard and lay the sod o'er me,
Oh, I'm a poor cowboy and I know I've done wrong.

"Go tell my mother and go tell my brother
And bear the sad news to my sister so dear;
But there is another more dear than my mother;
God bless my dear darling I wish she was here."

 
Note from E.L. Simons (1952): This very common American ballad was learned by my grandfather Simons from his older sister Elizabeth who learned the song in Western Kansas about 1888. According to Lomax, Folk Song U.S.A., p. 195, this song came originally from an English broadside ballad composed before 1790 and celebrating the death of "The Unfortunate Rake." In this country the song has developed three main variants, the above cowboy version, "The Bad Girl's Lament" common in the south, and the negro "St. James Infirmary Blues." For information on the nature of the rake's death and American censorship see Lomax, or Laws, Native American Balladry, p. 131.

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