Riding for the brand
It's a cowboy thing
If you’re relatively new to our newsletter, I’ve stated on my podcasts—and perhaps in the newsletter itself—that if I haven’t written anything good enough for me to read, I won’t publish it.
I’ve been working on a few ideas lately and have gotten caught up in those, but nothing for the proper length of a daily email.
Today I was thinking about cowboy music and cowboy poetry, so I figured something for you is better than nothing.
We’re also trying to grow the brand over here, and are working on our social media channels to either make them better or eliminate them entirely. Lots of discussions and deliberating, but yesterday, we did an Instagram post promoting the story we had for you over the weekend…basically why you should revere Elvis Presley and Olivia Newton-John if you are a Portlander worth your salt.
In other words, I’ve been working on my “brand.”
Though I’m no cowboy—at times I’ve fancied myself one, however—it reminds me of an old Red Steagall cowboy poem and also a Chris LeDoux song.
A little from Red Steagall’s poem “Ride for the Brand”:
He straightened up, hitched his pants,
Took a drink of cold beer;
Turned around with his hand on his hip.
He said, "Son, a man's brand is his own special mark
That says this is mine, leave it alone…”
Red Steagall: New and Selected Poems
Cowboy poetry. That’s the good stuff.
Red also features on Michael Martin Murphey’s Cowboy Songs as a background vocalist on a few tracks. Terrific album if you like anything western or cowboy.
Cowboy Songs III is arguably better, yet not as “traditional” in the cowboy-western genre. Verges into rock 'n' roll in parts, particularly in “Cole Younger,” track 13.
More than regularly, I used to time my drive to school in college by hitting play on track 14 when I left my apartment. (We had “CDs” in those days.) I was usually in a parking spot on campus—six minutes and two seconds later—as the ballad of the bandit queen “Belle Star” finished up.
Chris LeDoux appears with Murphey on “Strawberry Roan” on track 9. Terrific duet.
Lastly, a the song I originally wanted to mention, from my aforementioned hero Chris LeDoux (and there’s a whole future email…or book…on why this fellow is a hero/my hero) singing an Ed Bruce song (about a cowboy and riding “for the brand”)…
“As long as there's a sunset
He'll keep riding for the brand
You just can't see him from the road…
He's tall in the saddle, short on the cash
The last to quit, the first to buy the beer
He's a knight in leather armor still living by a code
That's made him what he's been a hundred years.”
For good measure, if you are not a Chris LeDoux fan yet with my full-court press I just put upon you, I want to turn you into one right now…
I shall echo The Great LeDoux…
When I die, you can bury me
Beneath these Western Skies…
Brian O’Leary