You know,
I've been singing songs from just most of the 48 states.
I call California my home.
Here's a folk song from California.
It's a cowboy song about them buckaroos,
California vaqueros,
Rusty Jigs and Sandy Sam.
It was way high up in the siree peaks
where the yellow pines grow tall.
Rusty Jigs and Sandy Sam had a roundup camp last fall.
Well,
they had the ponies and the running irons and maybe a dog or two.
They allowed the brand of a lop-eared cat to come within their view.
Well,
many a lop-eared doggie that didn't hush up by day had his long
ears whittled in his old hide scorched in the most artistic way.
Then said Rusty Jigs to Sandy Sam as he throwed his sigo down,
I'm tired of cow biography and the figures all over town.
So
they saddles up and they hit some of the
loafers that weren't no sight of a rise.
And it was the days when an old cow punch could all of us dry inside.
They starts her in a Kentucky bar at the head of the whiskey row.
And the ends her up at the depot house on 40 drinks below.
And they winds her up and they turns
around and they goes her the other way.
She tell you the Lord forsaken truth and boys got drunk that day.
Well,
they was a-headin' back to camp and a-packin' a mighty good load.
So he said to me,
but the devil himself come prancin' down the road.
And the devil he says,
you cowboy skunks you better go hunt your hoes.
Cause I've come up from the hills with rocks to gather in your soul.
Says Rusty Jigs to the devil,
though I know her tight,
no devil ever took an old cow punch
without one kind of a fight.
So he builds him a hole in his old throw rope,
he throws
it straight and true.
Caught the devil right around the horns,
he took his deli's due.
Now Sandy Sam was a ray out of man with his gut line called up neat.
Shakes her out and
he builds him a loop and he caught the devil's hind feet.
They throwed him down on the desert
ground while the arms was a-gettin' hot.
Cropped and swallowed,
forked his ears,
they branded
him up a lot.
They pruned him up with a dehorn and
saw tied knots in his tail for a jolt.
Rode off and left him bellerin' there,
necked up to an alley jack olt.
Now if you ever up
in the sirey peaks and you hear one hell of a wail,
you'll know it's nothin' but the devil
himself a-raisin' hell about the knots in his tail.