The Very Best Fake Cowboy Song

[beamjockey]

What's the best fake cowboy song? "Jingle Jangle Jingle?" "Don't Fence Me In?" "Wah-Hoo?" Some other song?

"Jingle Jangle Jingle," also known as "I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle," Joseph J. Lilley and Frank Loesser, 1942.
Lyrics.

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"Don't Fence Me In," by Cole Porter and Robert Fletcher, 1934. Lyrics.

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(Bonus: Trigger kisses Roy

Comments

[neowolf2]

On the second video: thanks for the trigger warning.

[seawasp]

Ouch. I have to say neigh to that.

[beamjockey]

Wish I'd said that!

[ritaxis]

Cool, Clear Water.

Makes no sense whatever but it's haunting.

[beamjockey]

It's a great song.

And it is arguably fake (Bob Nolan wrote it in 1936; he had been an itinerant laborer, but may not have worked as a cowboy per se; mostly he was a showbiz guy).

But now that you have mentioned it, "Cool Water" seems to inhabit a different universe than all the jolly, range-ridin' cowpokes in the other songs. It's a place where desperate men and desperate mules are struggling for survival, fighting temptation, praying for help, and taking hope from wistful visions (or are they hallucinations?) of a Big Green Tree somewhere.

Its language is over-the-top by the standards of our generation (which is perhaps why it is nearly always sung ironically, these days) but yeah, it's haunting.

[seawasp]

What do you mean by "fake cowboy song"? A song not written by actual cowboys?

[beamjockey]

Let's say it's a song that you feel is a fake cowboy song. Or we could take a page from Damon Knight's playbook, and say that "A Fake Cowboy Song is one I'm pointing to when I say 'This is a Fake Cowboy Song.'"

[seawasp]

Well, it's a real song about cowboys, but they're nothing like what real cowboys were like, so I'd say "Big Iron". Fallout New Vegas made it a frickin' earworm.

[beamjockey]

I always have trouble taking that one seriously, since I keep picturing a cowboy with, you know, a big iron on his hip.

[acmespaceship]

All excellent fake cowboy songs indeed. But my all-time favorite is a faux-recreation of the ultimate fictional archetype: http://www.ukulelejim.net/2007/04/the-cowboy-song/

Also, Long Tall Texan.

Giddyup.

[wcg]

Happy Trails.