Day 35 (D-26) Horses: Music, Art and Literature of the American West

Day 35 (D-26) Horses:  Music, Art and Literature of the American West

Mustangs, pintos and paints are horses.  A mustang is a free-roaming horse of the American west that first descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish.  Pinto is Spanish for Paint.

A song for today, I Ride an Old Paint: 

I Ride an Old Paint is a traditional cowboy song, collected and published in 1927 by Carl Sandburg (a famous American poet) in his American Songbag. He described the song as one of a man in harmony with the values of the American West.  Member of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.  Many have sung this song.

Listen here to Johnny Cash here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUFbDqp28so&list=RDqUFbDqp28so

You can listen to Linda Ronstadt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAHGbhmGttQ
Don't worry if you can't understand all the lyrics.   
It's one of my favorites.

And the song is sampled in American composer Aaron Copland's ballet Rodeo, (Saturday Night Waltz).  Beautiful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ3Xxz_D6D0

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An American Artist: Frederic Remington

Frederic Remington (1861-1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialised in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the last quarter of the 19th century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and the U.S. Cavalry.

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Louis L'Amour (1908-1988), a famous American writer of Western novels.  He wrote more than 100 books and 400 short stories.  He is one of the most prolific authors in the world.  There are more than 200 million copies of his books in print and more than 45 of his novels were adapted into Hollywood films. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QhTAvc_Xmc   (slow down the recording)

“The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast, and you miss all you are traveling for.”  

Louis L'Amour

“The way I see it, every time a man gets up in the morning he starts his life over. Sure, the bills are there to pay, and the job is there to do, but you don't have to stay in a pattern. You can always start over, saddle a fresh horse and take another trail.” 

― Louis L'Amour, The Proving Trail

Something for you to read:

http://www.louislamour.com/firstchapt/wherethelong1st.htm   

The first chapter of one of Louis L'Amour's short stories, Where the Long Grass Grows.  It's a little too long and difficult...but there's a man, Bill Canavan, a woman and...HORSES!

My best,

Jane

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--free-roaming = wild  

--trail = a path or track roughly blazed through wild or hilly country

--bills = factures

--in a pattern =   in a routine

-- saddle a fresh horse = put a saddle (on a fresh horse "seller un cheval"