"Long, Tall Texan"

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Born in the old Panhandle country,
Texas is where he grew to fame,
Ridin' a horse that he could handle,
That's how he got his name:

Bronco! Bronco!
Tearin' across the Texas Plain,
Bronco! Bronco!
Bronco Lane!"

--ABC-TV, ca.1961.

(I think there's another verse but it's about love stuff.)

JL
Marsha Alley <marshaalley at MSN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Marsha Alley
Subject: Re: "Long, Tall Texan"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh no no....you're right, musta been some Yankee.

As recorded by Murry Kellum in 1963 and Lyle Lovett in 1998:

Well I'm a long tall Texan
I wear a ten-gallon hat
---backup singers--(he rides from Texas in a ten-gallon hat)
Yes I'm a long tall Texan
I wear a ten-gallon hat
(He rides, etc.)
Well people look at me and they say
(oh lawd oh lawd)
Is that your hat?
(He rides from Texas etc.)

In the second verse he rides a big white horse
In the third he enforces justice for the law.

But it's always "oh lawd, oh lawd," with the d almost silent.

Marsha
/that's right, I'm not from Texas, but I left my heart there


---------------------- Information from the mail header =
-----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society =
>
Poster: Wilson Gray =
>
Subject: "Long, Tall Texan"
=
-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
------

Do any of y'all remember the song, "Long, Tall Texan," popular in the
early 'Sixties, I believe? Its chorus was, according to a lyrics site:

Well, I'm a long, tall Texan
I enforce justice for the law

He rides from Texas to enforce the law

Well, I'm a long, tall Texan
I enforce justice for the law

He rides from Texas to enforce the law

Well, people look at me and say
"Hurrah, hurrah, is you the law?"

He rides from Texas to enforce the law

This must have been transcribed by a Northerner, because nobody from
down home would misspell [^ r^] as "hurrah." I've never seen this
string in any kind of writing or in any kind of print, so I don't know
how one *would* spell it. "Uh ruh," perhaps? But "hurrah" can't
possibly be right.

-Wilson Gray


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.