Leadbelly - When I Was a Cowboy

Album: Goodnight Irene
Genre:Blues

[jaivkoltun]

Love this song. . . And I also love Rory Gallaghers version. . . Both different, both sublime. . .

[MrYossarianuk]

This song is beyond excellent, something almost perfect about it

[chortlingcricket]

Since I was small, Leadbelly songs could keep a body moving & a toe tapping. Through kitchen drudgery, pickin' beans in the summer heat & droll times of being a cog in the machine of making those ends meet. Without this man having sang his songs, where would music be today?

[dougieh]

I’ve been living under a rock. This is genius!!!
Why did nobody turn me on to this?

[garymorris]

This is a great example of the "bragging song, " with a succession of outlandish claims done to perfection by this master.

[jamesbradshaw]

Huddie William Ledbetter was nothing less then a master wordsmith, storyteller, songwriter, singer and poet, Listen to Rory Gallagher version of this song, Rory made this song so real that had a limp from a gunshot wound that he received from the bad boy Jesse James in the battle for Bunker Hill

[nutcracker]

Love it. And I also like Leadbelly's fan. Rory Gallagher's version too .

[MrScalan]

I love this tune!

When I was a cowboy
Out on the western plains
When I was a cowboy
Out on the western plains
I made a half a million
Pullin' on the bridle reins

Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah
Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah

Oh, the hardest battle
Was it ever on the western plains
Oh, the hardest battle
Was ever on the western plains
When me and a bunch of cowboys
Run into Jesse James

Come a cow ki-yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah
Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah

When me and a bunch of cowboys
Run into Jesse James
When me and a bunch of cowboys
Run into Jesse James
The bullets was a-fallin'
Just like a shower rain

Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah
Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah

Oh, de hardest battle
Was it ever on Bunker's Hill
Whoa, de hardest battle
Was a-ever on Bunker's Hill
When me an a bunch of cowboys
Run into Buffalo Bill

Come a cow ki-yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah
Come a cow ki-yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah

Huddie spoken:

The boys had it all in for a man on the outskirts a-town.
And they had made the hosses drunk.
They had made them .45's drunk. ha.
And the boys is already then they got drunk.
And all around that man's house
Them hosses was a-walkin'
And them .45's was-a talkin'.
And they shot out 'best regards'
To that man and here what they says:

De house catch de fire
And they ain't no water 'round
If yo' house catch de fire
And they ain't no water 'round
Throw yo' jelly out de window
Let de doggone shack burn down

Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah
Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah

Come all you cowboys
Don't you wanna go?
Come all you cowboys
Don't you wanna go?
Come meet de Lone Ranger
On a range of Buffalo

Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah
Come a cow ki--yicky
Come a cow ki-yicky-yicky-yeah.

[johntate]

I love the music of Leadbelly. He is so great a man a great voice and a guitar.

[dangerboy]

Leadbelly was a cowboy. He was a horse wrangler who broke wild horses. He would brake horses that other people couldn't.

[bobaldo]

My favorite Leadbelly cut! I had a Folkways album that included it.

[kennethnick]

Been a few years since I've listened to this. Love this song

[yobbo]

since i was a kid i loved Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band's cover, with Maria Muldaur singing.

[milascave]

This shows how arbitrary musical labels can be. Lead Belly is considered a blues singer because he was black. But if this had been sung by a white guy it would be heard as country music. In fact, white guys have covered it, and if those were the only versions you had heard, you would definitely think that it was country.

[Juliesullivanbrace]

Tim O'Brien and sister Molly O'Brien have a cool version of this also. Their version lead me to search out original. Thanks for sharing it.

[jamesbradshaw]

Can you just imagine those 2 bad boys Huddie William Ledbetter & Rory Gallagher out on the Western Plains robbing banks, smoking cigars, drinking cool beers, upsetting the local sherif and causing havoc and have the times of their lives

[yobbo]

when WC Fields left Vaudeville to make movies in Hollywood, he despised Hollywood cowboys as ridiculous clown fakes. Except Tom Mix. Back in his Vaudeville days he'd met Tom Mix wrangling horses for the British army during the Boer War. "He's the McCoy, " he would say. "He's the real thing."

[phillipthompson]

I had this on CD because of the nirvana cover where did you sleep last night

[veronicawhatley]

There are different stories has to the orgin of this song - someone has said Leadbelly wrote it after watching westerns on tv.

[MrJb]

fantastic from Lead Belly but have you every heard Rory Gallagher's version.