The Night Country
for february 2010, fireball wrote a bunch of words and sent them out to farflung folks to put them to music. seventeen songs came back from that venture. fireball added a little bit to many of the songs, with mixed results. here is information about the songs.
back to the FAWM 2010 songlist
another west kansas ballad
words by fireball
Larned is just a town at a junction
the miles tick away on the dashboards
Lienne was the daughter of a railman
Met her mother at San Ildefonso
And here's another West Kansas ballad
Laredo was the wild town on the border
El Aguila was what the locals called him
Larry Ross was governor in Texas
It was a rough test that felled El Aguila
And here's another West Kansas ballad
Lancaster changed into Lincoln
And one evening late in September
Long nights pass slow in the darkness
Born in the dust of the horses and cattle
And here's another West Kansas ballad
[Coyotes howl]
But the streets of Laredo remembered
And vigilantes were riding the prairies
She was two weeks shy of her birthday
Once a year mama told me this story
And here's another West Kansas ballad
Larned is just a town at a junction
music and performance by kendra calhoun
hawi, hawaii
bass, drum, and violin added by fireball
where five lonely country roads meet
in the flattened out heart of west Kansas
the miles will tear up your heart and your feet
writ down in glove box exposes
stretched out before dusty cracked windshields
In a windswept tumbleweed haze
Who had come from a half world away
He laid down the tracks from Topeka
To the dusty streets of old Santa Fe
Where the cold Rio Grande waters flow
Where the Black Mesa looms on the skyline
Where life's as it was long ago
A tale full of long prairie nights
Of boot heels and raw deals and endless wide wheatfields
A longing and a whetted appetite
A long day's drive from Larned
Far downstream along the Rio Grande water
With a sheriff everyone wanted dead
From his eyes and the feathers in his coal-black hat
The rustlers swore they would bury that bird
But he put a cold end to all that
Into the wild territory out west
And he held a firm hand on every law-abiding man
In a land that put the law to the test
Guns drawn on the left and the right
He melted the star down for one extra bullet
Slipped out down the river one night.
A tale full of long prairie odds
Of boot heels and raw deals and endless wide wheatfields
And hardships fit for the gods.
In the salt flats out past Omaha
And El Aguila cut his hair and his feathers
Drove cattle and hid from the law
He left the herd with the five other men
Went and sat for a spell at the nearest motel
Where the hostess was the lovely Lienne
Longing to keep themselves warm
And the next time the summertime came to Kansas
My mother Louisa was born
She settled her poor father down
He took over the homestead beside the motel
Where trails met in a West Kansas town
A tale full of long prairie songs
Of boot heels and raw deals and endless wide wheatfields
Where an old lonesome cowboy belongs
[Comets blaze across the sky]
[A single tumbleweed]
Quiet like words in the wind
In the shadows of the backalley outlaw saloons
El Aguila still flew now and then
Across borders that were just blurry lines
Fanning out through the wild territories
What comes is just a matter of time
The black horses came kicking the mud
Swift was the end for El Aguila and Lienne
Left Louisa in a pool of their blood
Never spoke of it on any other day
But every year on that date, she'd stand by the gate
And relive that 19th of May
A tale full of long prairie dreams
Of boot heels and raw deals and endless wide wheatfields
And wondering what it all means
where five lonely country roads meet
in the flattened out heart of west Kansas
the miles will tear up your heart and your feet