I have “Western Swing & Other Things” to thank for this 1948 song. The show is a Saturday morning staple in rural Kansas, an anachronism of radio that shouldn’t exist anymore. Allen Bailey (Dodge City’s Marshall Allen Bailey, if you want to get technical) and Cowgirl Janey play the best cowboy music for three solid hours, along with a touch of Big Band and classic crooners. It’s probably not for everyone, but if I can convince a girl in Scotland to listen to it, then isn’t that endorsement enough?
This particular song by Carson Robison reminds me of Ken Burns’ Dust Bowl series, of David Carradine as Woody Guthrie in “Bound for Glory“, of every Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton miracle, of wind so strong you can only inch forward. Robison is Kansas through and through, resigned pessimism and all.