Saturday, March 21, 1874. Home on the Range.

Dr. Higley.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 21: 

March 21

1874  My Western Home, better known as Home On The Range, was published by Dr. Brewster Higley, a Kansas homesteader, in the The Kirwin Chief.  It was shortly set to music by a friend of his.

My Western Home

by Dr. Brewster Higley

Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam

Where the Deer and the Antelope play;

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Chorus:

A home! A home!

Where the Deer and the Antelope play,

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

And the sky is not clouded all day.

Oh! give me a land where the bright diamond sand

Throws its light from the glittering streams,

Where glideth along the graceful white swan,

Like the maid in her heavenly dreams.

Chorus

Oh! give me a gale of the Solomon vale,

Where the life streams with buoyancy flow;

On the banks of the Beaver, where seldom if ever,

Any poisonous herbage doth grow.

Chorus

How often at night, when the heavens were bright,

With the light of the twinkling stars

Have I stood here amazed, and asked as I gazed,

If their glory exceed that of ours.

Chorus

I love the wild flowers in this bright land of ours,

I love the wild curlew’s shrill scream;

The bluffs and white rocks, and antelope flocks

That graze on the mountains so green.

Chorus

The air is so pure and the breezes so fine,

The zephyrs so balmy and light,

That I would not exchange my home here to range

Forever in azures so bright.

Chorus

1904 Version of the text

by William and Mary Goodwin:

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,

Where the deer and the antelope play;

There seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Chorus:

A home, a home

Where the deer and the antelope play,

There seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Yes, give me the gleam of the swift mountain stream

And the place where no hurricane blows;

Oh, give me the park where the prairie dogs bark

And the mountain all covered with snow.

Chorus

Oh, give me the hills and the ring of the drills

And the rich silver ore in the ground;

Yes, give me the gulch where the miner can sluice

And the bright, yellow gold can be found.

Chorus

Oh, give me the mine where the prospectors find

The gold in its own native land;

And the hot springs below where the sick people go

And camp on the banks of the Grande.

Chorus

Oh, give me the steed and the gun that I need

To shoot game for my own cabin home;

Then give me the camp where the fire is the lamp

And the wild Rocky Mountains to roam.

Chorus

Yes, give me the home where the prospectors roam

Their business is always alive

In these wild western hills midst the ring of the drills

Oh, there let me live till I die.

Chorus

1910 Version of the Text

by John A. Lomax

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,

Where the deer and the antelope play,

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Chorus:

Home, home on the range,

Where the deer and the antelope play;

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Where the air is so pure, the zephyrs so free,

The breezes so balmy and light,

That I would not exchange my home on the range

For all of the cities so bright.

Chorus

The red man was pressed from this part of the West

He’s likely no more to return,

To the banks of Red River where seldom if ever

Their flickering camp-fires burn.

Chorus

How often at night when the heavens are bright

With the light from the glittering stars

Have I stood here amazed and asked as I gazed

If their glory exceeds that of ours.

Chorus

Oh, I love these wild prairies where I roam

The curlew I love to hear scream,

And I love the white rocks and the antelope flocks

That graze on the mountain-tops green.

Chorus

Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sand

Flows leisurely down the stream;

Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along

Like a maid in a heavenly dream.

Chorus

Last Prior Edition:

Tuesday, March 17, 1874. John Younger shot and killed

1870s, 1874, Crime, Missouri, Personalities

In Memoriam

2022 closed out with enough departures from this life of interesting and significant people that it has that portents feeling to it.  Let's hope that's just being naturally ill at ease.

Pope Benedict XVI

The most significant death, of course, is that of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died on the last day of the year.  His death was not unexpected.

The German-born Joseph Ratzinger was an intellectual and a theologian.  For misguided reasons, he was regarded as the "Panzer Cardinal" by some of his supporters, a nickname that never reflected his personality but which rose out of his stout defenses of orthodoxy.

His resignation as Pope, the first that had occurred in centuries, was due to ill health and was controversial at the time.  There is, frankly, much to be lamented by it, at least by those who have a conservative religious bent (as I do), who lost, if nothing else, and there was much else, a conservative Pope who would have appointed conservative cardinals and perhaps been in a better position to take on the German Bishops.

Benedict grew up in Nazi Germany, where his father was an outspoken anti-Nazi policeman.  His family was deeply religious.  He was conscripted into a Luftwaffe anti-aircraft batter late in the war at the time in which Germany was reaching down into the early teens for that role.  He lived an exceptional life, but by some accounts, given his academic nature, wasn't ideally suited for his role as Pope.

Ian Tyson

Ian Tyson was a Western, not Country and Western but Western, musician who was a giant in that arena.

Tyson was early on a folk musician who sang with Sylvia Fricker, whom he later married, and then divorced.  Following his divorce, he moved to Alberta to train horses and when Bob Dylan recorded Four Strong Winds he used the royalties to buy his ranch. Following that, he focused on traditional "Cowboy Style" music is distinct from the Hillbilly Country Music and Country Pop so popular in the U.S.  He was a pioneer in a small revival that's spread back into the US, but which still sees its most significant members being Canadian, showing the Western nature of Western Canada.

He died on December 29, at age 89.

Pelé

Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé, was the greatest soccer player in the world in his era, and will go down as one of those figures who are famous in a sport, and outside of it, forever.  

I know little about him, other than his fame in soccer, but as I don't follow soccer, that says something.  He died on December 29 at age 82.

Barbara Walters

Barbara Walters was born the same year as my late father and was a major newscaster and interviewer when I was growing up.

It's perfectly fair to say that she was a female pioneer in the area, although as we've pointed out in regard to the very early history of Meet The Press there were significant women, albeit few in number, in the field prior to her.

I'll be frank that I never liked her interviewing style and found her voice ill-suited for her role, as she was somewhat hard to understand, which some people are.  She died on December 30, at age 93.

Corb Lund - Cows Around

Colter Wall "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie"- Live from Speedy Creek

Get Along Little Doggies (Whoopie Ti Yi Yo).

Whoopie Ti Yi Yo is a classic genuine Cowboy song. The song is an old one and like a lot of genuine Western music, it is a European folk ballad that was reset in a Western location.  The original song was an Irish ballad about an old man being rocked in a rocking chair.

The first reference to this song of any kind was in Owen Wister's The Virginian.  He'd no doubt heard it in Wyoming when he'd toured it prior to writing his novel which was published in 1893.  The song was referenced by musicologist John Lomax in his 1910 work Cowboy Song and Other Frontier Ballads.  It was first recorded in 1929.

In putting this up here, I had a variety of recordings I could have chosen, but I yielded to popular pressure and put up the Chris Ledoux variant as Ledoux remains very popular with Wyomingites.  I'm the odd man out on that as I find Ledoux's voice rough and I'm generally not a fan.

Wyoming Music and Friday Farming: Leavin' Cheyenne (Goodbye Old Paint).

This old cowboy ballad is a classic, and this is my favorite version of it.  It was written by black cowboy Charlie Willis, and was first included in musical indices in 1921.  It's regarded as one of the top 100 Western songs of all times.

Concerning the song, it's a true example of a "Western" song, a genera that's all but disappeared, having been absorbed by Country & Western music.