Digital Tradition Mirror

Chisholm Trail

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

(alternate:)

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Chisholm Trail

Cho:    Come-a ti yi youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya.
        Come-a ti yi youpy, youpy ya.

Come gather round me boys and I'll tell you a tale
All about my troubles on the old Chisholm Trail.

I started up the trail October twenty-third.
I started up the trail with the 2-U herd.

Oh, I had a ten-dollar horse and a forty-dollar saddle,
And I started up the trail just punchin' Texas cattle.

I woke up one morning on the old Chisholm Trail
With a rope in my hand and a cow by the tail.

Old Ben Bolt was a blamed good boss,
But he went to see the gals on a sore-backed horse.

Now old Ben Bolt was a blamed old man.
You could bet there was whiskey wherever he would land.

Out on the plains in all kinds of rains,
I'm a-swappin' saddle cinches and pullin' bridle reins.

We hit Caldwell and we hit her on the fly,
And we bedded down the cattle on a hill close by.

It began to storm and the rain began to fall,
And I thought, by grab, we was gonna lose 'em all.

I jumped in the saddle and grabbed a-hold of the horn.
I'm the best blamed cowboy as ever was born.

Stray in the bunch and boss said kill it,
So I shot him in the rump with the handle of the skillet.

We rounded up the herd and we put them on the cars,
And that was the last if the old Two Bars.

I went to the wagon to get my roll.
He had me figured out nine dollars in the hole.

I'll sell my outfit as soon as I can,
And I wouldn't punch cows for no damned man.

Feet in the stirrups and seat in the saddle,
I hung and rattled with them long-horn cattle.

As recorded by Jules Allen in Hollywood, California, on 28 March 1929.
Victor Vi V-40167. Reissued on Jules Allen, "Texas Cowboy,"
Folk Variety LP FV12502.

One of the oldest of the cowboy songs. It dates back to the years
soon after the Civil War when half-wild longhorns were driven from
Texas to the shipping points on the new railroads in Kansas. The
trail was named after a half-breed Indian trader, Jesse Chisholm.
It went from central Texas, through the center of Oklahoma and
into eastern Kansas. Other trails farther to the west eventually
replaced it. There were numerous versions of the song, including
some bawdy ones.

play.exe CHISHLM2
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Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!