Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie: A Song History

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"Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" is catalogued in the Traditional Ballad Index as Laws B2 and Roud 631, and the Index judges it probably to be a reworking of "The Ocean Burial," a poem about burial at sea attributed to the Rev. Edwin H. Chapin and dated 1839.[1] Oliver Ditson of Boston published the sea song as sheet music in 1850 under the name of George N. Allen, yet the Index's editors point out that Allen's melody is not the tune sung to the cowboy song, and they conclude that the composer of the sea song's music should be listed as unknown.[2] The Index also notes a claim, in the 1922 edition of Thorp's collection, that one H. Clemons made the prairie version in 1872, a claim for which its editors know of no supporting evidence.[1]

Bronze sculpture of a cowboy in a hat clinging to a rearing, bucking horse, one arm flung out for balance

Frederic Remington, The Broncho Buster, bronze, 1895, revised 1909, cast by November 1910. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A cowboy on a bucking horse, shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

The earliest date the Index gives for the cowboy song is 1901, in the Journal of American Folklore, and it lists versions collected across much of the United States and in Canada.[1] John A. Lomax opened his 1910 collection Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads with it, under the title "The Dying Cowboy."[3] Other titles listed for it include The Lone Prairie and The Lonesome Prairie.[1]

An early disc is "The Dying Cowboy" by Bentley Ball on Columbia A3085, which the Discography of American Historical Recordings dates to approximately 1919[4] and the Index lists under 1920.[1] Carl T. Sprague recorded it for Victor on June 22, 1926, released on Victor 20122 with "The Cowboy's Dream" on the other side.[5] The Index lists numerous other recordings from the late 1920s and early 1930s, including versions by Vernon Dalhart, the Pickard Family, Holland Puckett and Phil and Frank Luther.[1] Lomax himself recorded Sloan Matthews of Alpine, Texas, singing it at Pecos in 1942, and the Library of Congress issued that performance in 1952 on Cowboy Songs, Ballads, and Cattle Calls from Texas.[6]

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Sources

  1. Folklorist (Traditional Ballad Index data, Waltz & Engle): "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie".
  2. Folklorist (Traditional Ballad Index data, Waltz & Engle): "The Ocean Burial".
  3. Internet Archive (Cornell University Library): John A. Lomax, "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads" (1910).
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia A3085 (10-in. double-faced)".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor 20122 (Black label (popular) 10-in. double-faced)".
  6. Library of Congress: "The Dying Cowboy".