***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-A Paen To The Great Amercian West Night- Happy Trails To You  

 

 
A YouTube clip to give some flavor to this subject.

 

…in no particular order- for all the wretched wranglers, for all the cowpokes, for all the chuck wagon chucks, for all the black-hatted desperados, for a the stinking braceros, for all the injuns (okay, okay Native Americans), for all the buffalo soldiers, for all the discharged Civil War soldiers who went west, for all the scouting parties, for all the city slickers who had a dream, for all the saloon barkeepers charging too much for whisky, for all the outlaws turned sheriff, for Billy the Kid, for the James boys, for the Lone Ranger, for Geronimo, for the wagon parties that did, or did not make it, for Brigham Young and his golden tabernacle boys, for the cattle ranchers, for the sheep ranchers, for hardy pioneer women, for the hearty hookers, for the dance hall girls, for the silver miners, for the gold miners, for the Iowa farmers pulling up stakes, for the immigrant tinhorns, and for that lonesome cowboy, hat tilted against the winds, saddled up and riding herd…  

…for the all the mesas, for the Grand Canyon, for Tombstone, for Denver, for Flagstaff, for Salt Lake City, for rockymountainshigh, for the high desert, for the arroyos, for the ravines, for the Red River (and the Sabine), for the Rio Grande, for Mission Viejo, for Ogala, for Pine Ridge, for the Black Hills, for the Colorado River, for hotter than hell Needles(California), for Joshua Tree, for Los Cruces, for White Sands, for the Comstock Trail, for Pike’s Peak, for Fort Worth, for Cheyenne, for Big Sky country, for Reno, for Winnemucca and for blessed Pacific Ocean …        

… for bringing firewater to the injuns (oops, Native Americans) for building the Grand Coulee Dam, for setting speed records at the Bonneville salt flats, for cattle rustling, for sheep stealing, for playing with marked decks, for the OK corral, for making Buffalo Phil (oops Bill) a national icon, for Ms. Annie Oakley too, for traversing the Colorado River, for setting up all those Spanish missions with the sainted names, for six-shooters and guys to shoot them, for the transcontinental railroad routes, for taming the wild west, for Larry McMurtry, most definitely for The Last Picture Show, for cranking all those fossil fuels out of the good old earth (although you can stop now, okay), for barbed wire fences, for wild boy cowboy rodeos, for Tex, Mex music, for Tex Ritter and ten thousand sainted cowboys real and televised, for this whole jumble of good and bad persons, places and things that have made the West, and for the search for the great blue-pink American West night and done …             

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Lyrics to "Happy Trails" by Dale Evans Rogers

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

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Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin