Spanish Is A Loving Tongue: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

"Spanish Is a Loving Tongue" started life as a poem rather than a folk song: Badger Clark's "A Border Affair," printed in the June 1907 issue of The Pacific Monthly under the byline Charles B. Clark, Jr.[1] Clark (1883–1957), later South Dakota's first poet laureate, had gone to Arizona after a tuberculosis diagnosis and began writing verse during roughly four years on a remote ranch there.[2] The ranch lay near Tombstone, and Clark gathered the poem into Sun and Saddle Leather, his first collection, in 1915.[3][4]

Woven blanket in red and dark stripes with a dark V-shaped central pattern.

Mexico, Saltillo Sarape, wool and cotton, tapestry weave, c. 1820-50. A Mexican Saltillo sarape of the early 1800s, shown for the song's border setting; it has no connection to the song.

According to Smithsonian magazine, Bill Simon, an Arizona cowboy, came across Clark's book in 1925 and set the poem to music, after which it caught on as a song for cowboys' campfires.[3] SecondHandSongs credits Simon with the music and lists a 1936 release by Tex Fletcher as the first recording.[5] Later recordings include Richard Dyer-Bennet's in 1958, Ian & Sylvia's on Four Strong Winds in 1963, and Bob Dylan's, issued in 1971 as the flip side of "Watching the River Flow."[3] Smithsonian presents it as a ballad that many listeners probably never knew Clark had written.[3]

For mountain dulcimer players, Maureen Sellers sets it as a pair of parts, melody and harmony, both in DAD tuning, in Simply Duets, her Fingers Of Steel book of older songs for two dulcimers.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Spanish Is A Loving Tongue"

Sources

  1. Internet Archive: "The Pacific Monthly, Volume XVII (January–June 1907)".
  2. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum: "Badger Clark".
  3. Smithsonian Magazine: "Saddle Up With Badger Clark, America's Forgotten Cowboy Poet".
  4. South Dakota State Historical Society Foundation: "Centennial Observed of Poet Badger Clark's First Book".
  5. SecondHandSongs: "Spanish Is the Loving Tongue".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Maureen Sellers, Simply Duets".
  7. Image: Mexico, Saltillo Sarape, wool and cotton, tapestry weave, c. 1820-50. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song