In which the trails of a young boy, cows, the NPS, John Ford, and Peggy Lee converge:

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/2058/28

The story is based on a legend that dates before cowboys....

(From Wikipedia)

The Wild Hunt (also known variously as Woden's Hunt, Herod's Hunt, Gabriel's Hounds, Cain's Hunt, the Devil's Dandy Dogs, and in North America Ghost Riders was a folk myth prevalent in former times across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal group of huntsmen with the accouterments of hunting, horses, hounds, *etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground, or just above it. It is often a way to explain thunderstorms.

Seeing the Wild Hunt was thought to presage some catastrophe such as war or plague, or at best the death of the one who witnessed it. Mortals getting in the path of or following the Hunt could be kidnapped and brought to the land of the dead.

Painting of The Wild Hunt: Åsgårdsreien (1872) by Peter Nicolai Arbo
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... mindre.jpg

Ghost Riders In The Sky is one of the most enduring popular songs of the 40s. I think that it was likely the first song from the 1940s that I may have actually learned as a kid in the 1960s. When I was a young boy my friends and I all knew the lyrics, although I have no idea where I learned them. This was at a time when In The Mood, American Patrol, or Little Brown Jug would have seemed very dated to us.* And later on, when I was in junior high in the 70s, I found that this was true of other kids I became friends with. Late in my high school some hard rock band actually covered the song, and at least one of my friends had that version of it on an lp.

This post here is oddly synchronicitous. For whatever reason, this song came to mind for me about two weeks ago. I was having some discussion with my son, and it came to mind. While I am a terrible singer, and very rarely sing (heck, I don't even sing they hymns at Mass if I can avoid it), I sang a bit of it and it actually spooked him a bit. A couple of days later I downloaded the Vaughn Monroe version off of ITunes.

An old cowboy went ridin' out one dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw
Plowin' through the ragged skies, and up a cloudy draw

Their brands were still on fire, and their hooves were made of steel
Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
For he saw the riders comin' hard, and he heard their mournful cry

Yipie i-oh, yipie i-ay! Ghost herd in the sky

Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred their shirts all soaked with sweat
They're ridin' hard to catch that herd, but they ain't caught 'em yet'
'Cause they've got to ride forever on that range up in the sky
On horses snorting fire, as they ride on, hear their cry

Yipie i-oh, yipie i-ay! Ghost riders in the sky

As the riders loped on by him, he heard one call his name
"If you want to save your soul from hell a riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today, or with us you will ride
Tryin' to catch the devil's herd, across these endless skies"

Yipie i-oh, yipie i-ay! Ghost riders in the sky
Ghost riders in the sky
Ghost riders in the sky


*On dates songs, I'm not sure why, but it's curious that when I was a kid in the 60, songs fro the 40s seemed to truly be from another generation. And it wasn't as if the local radio stations commonly slipped back 20 years in time to play a song from the 40s either. In the 70s, I can recall them playing songs from the 60s, and in the 80s I can recall that occasionally being done, but only if they were really popular songs from the 60s. But now rock stations seem to drop back 30 or 40s years all the time.

..."I sang a bit of it and it actually spooked him a bit..."
That I can believe!

Vaughn Monroe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsfw9CEQITA

Everybody and their dog has covered "Ghost Riders." Burl Ives, Johnny Cash, Chris LeDoux, and, of course, Riders In The Sky are just the ones that pop into my head right now. The rock band referenced by Pat, the Outlaws, was always more of a Southern or country-rock group and the song was a natural for their playlist. They still tour, and "GR" is almost as big an anthem for them as their "Green Grass and High Tides."

One of the better versions of "Ghost Riders", IMO, is Lorne Greene's. His enunciation of each line and his understated delivery really make my arm hairs stand up.