Support the troops

Recorded by Ernest Tubb and written by Tubb and an Army Sargent, Soldiers Last Letter was the kind of song that used to mean support of the troops

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SOLDIER'S LAST LETTER
Recorded by Ernest Tubb
Written by Sgt. Henry Stewart and Ernest Tubb

[C] When the postman delivered a [G] letter
It filled her dear heart full of [C] joy
But she didn't know til she [D] read the inside
It was the [G] last one from her darling [C] boy.

Dear Mom, was the way that it started
I miss you so much, it went on
Mom, I didn't know, that I loved you so
But I'll prove it when this war is won.

I'm writing this down in a trench, Mom
Don't scold if it isn't so neat
You know as you did, when I was a kid
And I'd come home with mud on my feet.

The captain just gave us our orders
And Mom, we will carry them through.
I'll finish this letter the first chance I get
But now I'll just say I love you.

Then the mother's old hands began to tremble
And she fought against tears in her eyes
But they came unashamed for there was no name
And she knew that her darling had died.

That night as she knealt by her bedside
She prayed Lord above hear my plea
And protect all the sons that are fighting tonight
And dear God keep America free.

Like the current country music hits about the war it's got it's bit about the mission and keeping American free. But the major theme is about soldiers dying and about the people who loved them. Toby Kieth could learn something from Ernest Tubb. But he won't.

Cowboys

I grew up in Texas, as did my Daddy, and my Grand-daddy, and his daddy, and his daddy. I'm not sure about prior to that. I think some of them came from Missouri and some from Alabama. Part of growing up was learning the myth of the Texas cowboy.

I grew up in the city, in Austin, not exactly cowboy country. My daddy grew up in town, in places like Alpine, Texas and Marfa, Texas. He wasn't living the cowboy life, but those places were certainly cowboy country. My granddaddy and grandmother had grown up on ranches in Gaines County, near Seagraves. One of the cowboy stories my grandaddy told me was about the one cattle drive he worked driving cattle from Seagraves to Amarillo right before a railroad spur was built to Seagraves in 1917. He was 11. That experience was enough for him to learn that whatever he ended up doing when he grew up, it wasn't going to be cowboying.

My daddy told me stories about his childhood on the wooden sidewalks of 1930's Alpine that made clear distinctions between ranchers and cowboys. The class differences were very real, in some of those stories the differences were those of life and death.

In the 8th grade we took Texas History. That 8th grade Texas History course very much creates Texas men. They talked about cowboys, yes, but they also talked about Heroes (Jim Bowie) and lawmen (Big Foot Wallace) and outlaws (Sam Bass).

So, I didn't grow up as a cowboy, but I grew up knowing what the cowboy myth was about, knowing it in a deeper sense than just watching John Wayne in the movies and Roy Rogers on TV and listening to Gene Autry records.

I don't live in Texas anymore. I didn't even graduate from high school in Texas. I graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in Baton Rouge, then went to college at LSU and even Northwestern (when my grandmother told me, "there's Yankees living up there, Gary"). I did live back in Texas for a few years as an adult. But, I also lived in places like San Francisco and Seattle. Now I'm in Oklahoma. Rural Oklahoma. But once a 13 year old boy takes that 8th grade Texas History course, he's a Texan forever, no matter where he is.

Ten miles down the road is a town called Perkins, Oklahoma. They have a sign near the city limits that has puzzled me. "Home of the original cowboy". What the hell does that mean? I know about cowboys. And cowboys don't have much to do with Oklahoma, no matter how big a hat Garth Brooks might wear.

The cowboy era ran from just after the civil war to sometime before the end of the 19th century. It lasted 20, maybe 30 years, covering a time when the US was expanding into the West but the railroads weren't covering the continent yet.

Cowboys drove cattle from Texas to Kansas, travelling through Indian Territory, not through Oklahoma. Indian Territory lasted from the mid 1830's until 1890, when it was renamed Oklahoma Territory. The Oklahoma land rush was in 1889 and Oklahoma become a state in 1907. During the cowboy era of American Oklahoma was about Indians, not Cowboys.

What are they talking about? "Home of the original cowboy"?. That sign just made no sense to me at all and I just assumed it was some sort of attempt at revisionist history. Maybe they were talking about the birthplace of the first rodeo clown or something.

Then it finally came to me the other day. They must be talking about a football team mascot. That is one thing Texas and Oklahoma have in common. They get confused real easy and think high school football has something to do with real life.

Oklahoma State University is right down the road from Perkins, in Stillwater, and their football mascot is The Cowboys. Maybe the Perkins High School Cowboys predates Oklahoma State, or something like that.

It turns out that's not the case at all. The Oklahoma State Cowboys is named after a legendary Oklahoma Lawman (and gunfighter) who lived in Perkins.

These people can't even tell the difference between a cop and a cowboy. There's no hope for Oklahoma.

Rednecks and Country Music

There's a perception that country music fans don't like the Dixie Chicks. I'm not sure that's true myself, I think country music radio owners dont like the Dixie Chicks and I think that's a very different things. CMT kind of avoid them, and they don't get any country music radio play, but they're still selling records.

I guess there are some country music fans that don't care for the Dixie Chicks because of the attitude, there are country music fans who actually think it's cool to be a stupid, reactionary redneck.

The Dixie Chicks are pretty much as redneck you can get in Texas outside of those living out in the woods in East Texas.

Natalie Maines was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas. West Texas has spawned a lot of country music names Buddy Holly (Lubbock), Mac Davis (Lubbock), Waylon Jennings (Littlefield), Jimmy Dean (Plainview), Tanya Tucker (Seminole), Roy Orbison (Wink), Bob Wills (Turkey). Joe Ely (Lubbock) to name just a few.

How much more country can you get than Lubbock, Texas?

But West Texas rednecks are different, I think. I think they tend to be more progressive than the typical southern redneck or rural midwestern redneck. I'm not sure why. I think it's because they don't have the civil war related violent racial history that places as diverse as Kansas and Alabama share. West Texas had nothing to do with any of that stuff. When the Klan was being formed in post Civil War Tennessee West Texas was ruled by Comanche Indians.

Natalie is the one who made the on stage crack about Bush and Texas that set the whole thing with the Dixie Chicks off.

The New York Times seems to think that Natalie, and the rest of the Dixie Chicks, are in trouble with country music fans because they look down their noses at them.

Country fans are loyal, but they're not low-maintenance. By the time Ms. Maines made her statement in 2003, many were already questioning the trio's commitment: would they leave their old supporters behind?

For mistrustful listeners in search of an answer, Ms. Maines's comments provided one. Forget about President Bush: she had used the words "ashamed" and "Texas" in the same sentence, and she had done it on foreign soil. She meant to insult the president, but some former fans thought they heard her insulting Texans, and therefore Southerners, and therefore nonmetropolitan listeners everywhere.

This interpretation may seem specious. And yet Ms. Maines and her band mates seem to be going out of their way to prove their detractors right. Instead of fighting for their old fans, the Dixie Chicks seem to be dismissing them.

On "60 Minutes" Ms. Maguire told Steve Kroft that their concerts weren't typical country concerts. "When I looked out in the audience, I didn't see rednecks," she said. (Did her lip curl slightly as she pronounced the r-word?) "I saw a more progressive crowd."

There's probably some truth to that among the true trailer park rednecks of country music fans. I just don't think that segement is really all that large a portion of the market for country music sales. Not all country music fans spend their evenings throwing beer cans out the car window and shooting deer rifles at road signs.

Merle as surrender monkey

When Merle Haggard turns surrender monkey maybe it's time to think about bring the troops home.

Don't Fence Me In

CMT is running a show on the top 20 cowboy songs. Songs like Don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys by Waylon and Willie. And the Dixie Chicks Cowboy take me away. And Cool Water by the Sons of the Pioneers.

But my all time favorite cowboy song isn't on the list. Gene Autry has two on the list, Home on the Range and Back in the Saddle Again.

When I was a kid, a very young kid, I had a little green plastic 45 rpm record with Gene Autry singing Don't Fence me in.

I played it over and over. That song really spoke to me, even when I was as young as 5. I'd sit on the floor in my room, put that record on and play it. Then I'd have to lift it up and put it back on the record changer and hit the switch again to play it a second time.

Listen to it.

I have no idea what that song said to me. But it said something, and when I was 5 I knew what it was.

Willie and Faron

Watching a Hee-Haw rerun with Willie Nelson and Faron Young. They didn't have them do a duet of "Hello Walls" (a song Willie wrote and Faron Young recorded and made them both rich).

They did do a duet of another Willie Nelson song, "Funny How Time Slips Away".

I guess they didn't do "Hello Walls" because Willie didn't want to do a song that was initially recorded and made famous by someone else, even though he's the guy who wrote it and it's a song that paid for a lot of Willie Nelson cocaine partys at Austin's Driscoll Hotel with it's royalty checks.

All those drugs sure did age Willie though. Faron Young looked younger than Willie.