Cowboy Songs

Welcome to Wednesday!

I'm Lynnette Kent, and I'm one of those authors who can't write with noise in the background--that includes music as well as TV and conversation.  Like Becky said last week, I'm watching a movie in my head as I type out the words.  I want silence around me so I can hear the tone of each voice and see the look in a character's eyes as they speak.  Rather than making things up, I feel like I'm transcribing a scene in my head that's happening independent of me as the writer.  The least distraction messes with my attention to details.

But when I'm not actively writing, I love to have music going that reflects my vision of the story.  My first book for Harlequin was a rodeo story--One More Rodeo, in which the heroine, Mickey, was a champion bareback rider and the hero, Jeff, was a veterinarian.  I spent hours watching rodeo on TV, went to as many live events and talked to as many authentic cowboys as I could find.  And since I was living in the Washington, D.C. area at the time, hunting up cowboys wasn't easy!

I drew on that research again for Jesse: Merry Christmas, Cowboy, the last of the Cody Family series.  I also pulled out the music I listened to for my first rodeo tale.  Garth Brooks was the biggest name in country music then (it was 1994) and I loved his big hit, "Rodeo."

His eyes are cold and restless, and his wounds have almost healed.
And she'd give half of Texas, just to change the way he feels.
But she knows his love's in Tulsa, she knows he's gonna go.
Hell, it ain't no woman of flesh 'n blood, it's that damned ol' rodeo!*

I discovered Chris LeDoux at the same time and enjoyed his many rodeo tunes, including "Hooked on an 8-Second Ride."  Chris, in case you've never heard of him, was a rodeo star himself, and winner of the National Finals Championship in Bareback Riding.  He started making tapes of his music to sell at the shows  where he competed, then retired from rodeo and took up music full time.  Garth and Chris did a duet I love: "What You Gonna Do With a Cowboy When He Don't Saddle Up and Ride Away?"

In fact, Garth used Chris in one of his earliest songs, "I'm Much Too Young to Feel This Damned Old," about a cowboy driving to his next rodeo.  Garth says..."A worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux, lonely women and bad booze seem to be the only friends I've left at all."*   And Chris didn't even know about the song until he heard it one day on the radio in his truck!  Of course, after that, everybody started looking for Chris LeDoux.

Some of my favorite country music tunes turned out to be songs that didn't get much airplay, including more Garth Brooks--"The Cowboy Song," "Night Rider's Lament," and "Cowboy Bill".  That last one still makes me cry.  Trisha Yearwood was always good for some cowboy inspiration, especially during "The Song Remembers When."  I can't leave out Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, with "Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys" and "Good-Hearted Woman, Lovin' A Good-Timin' Man," "Luchenbach, Texas," and "Blue Eyes Cryin' In the Rain."  Or Kris Kristoferson--"Help Me Make It Through the Night" and "Me and Bobby McGee."

Of all the songs I love to hear while I'm writing western stories, the best is probably one of the very earliest I encountered, another Willie Nelson classic.  I saw "The Electric Horseman," with Robert Redford, when it first came to theaters in 1979, and the main song has been with me ever since...

I grew up dreamin' of bein' a cowboy, and lovin' the cowboy ways.
Pursuin' the life of my high-ridin' heroes, I burned up my childhood days.
I learned all the rules of the modern day drifter--Don't you hold on to nothin' too long.
'Just take what you need from the ladies then leave them' were the words of a sad country song.

My heroes have always been cowboys.
And they still are it seems.
Sadly in search of and one step in back of
Myself and my slow-moving dreams.***

Man, what a portrait.  Listening to the music, I can see him out there, riding his favorite horse as he checks out the fenceline or herds the cattle.  Despite all the outfits bought up by big business and all the machines they use to do the ranching these days, he's still out there, if you look hard enough--a bonafide American hero.  As Chris LeDoux reminded us:

He's still out there ridin' fences.
Still makes his livin' with his rope.
As long as there's a sunset, he'll keep ridin' for the brand.
You just can't see him from the road.****

And I hope to keep writing about him for just about that long.

Happy Reading!

Lynnette   

So I won't get sued:
*"Rodeo" written by Larry Bastien, performed by Garth Brooks on "Ropin' the Wind," 1991.
**"Much Too Young" written by Randy Taylor and Garth Brooks, performed by Garth Brooks on "Garth Brooks," 1989.
***"My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," written by Sharon Vaughn, performed by Willie Nelson for the film "The Electric Horseman," 1979.
****"You Just Can't See Him From the Road," written by Donnie Blanz, Ed Bruce and Judith Bruce, performed by Chris LeDoux,  "The Capitol Collection, 1990-2000," 2002.