It’s no surprise that one of the best
recent anthems to cowboy life, “Here’s Looking at You,” comes from a
man who has spent most of his life in the saddle. How it came to be
recorded did involve a few surprises.
A stirring paean to the trail-driving
cowboy, “Here’s Looking at You,” recorded by Don Edwards on his
Saddle Songs II, Last of the Troubadours, was written
by top poet and respected horseman Joel Nelson. With that rare,
timeless quality of taking the listener back in time while staying
firmly rooted in the present, the song only enhances the sweep of the
cowboy heritage. Like Michael Burton’s “The Night Rider’s Lament,” it
resonates with so many of today’s cowboys’ shared sense of having been
born more than a hundred years too late, and leaves no question about
what inspires a modern cowboy to follow the challenging, iconoclastic
trail.
While “Here’s Looking at You” came from
the pen of an extraordinary poet, it emerged as a song, not a poem.
No one was more surprised than Don Edwards, who tells of his friendly
skepticism when Joel Nelson told him he had written a song that he
wanted Don to hear. Don admits he was thinking “A song? Joel’s a
poet,” and before he knew it, Joel had another surprise: he pulled
out his guitar. Don says, “I’ve known Joel for twenty-five years, and
I didn’t know he played the guitar.” His expectations weren’t high. He
went from skeptic to believer quickly.
What followed was what Don describes as
a song of “marvelous purity, akin to the works of Don Hedgpeth, JB
Allen, Badger Clark, Bruce Kiskaddon,” writers able to make words with
“a hundred years wrapped into now.” Don says that he couldn’t get the
song out of his mind, and he soon was in touch with Joel to talk about
working with the song, saying that he didn’t want to do anything to
take away from the near-perfect words. Don's skillful arrangement
makes it impossible to imagine any other tune working with the
inspired lyrics.
Known for his care in all of his
work--with horses as well as words--Joel Nelson had honed the lyrics
before Don heard them. His original title was “The Prototypes,” and
the handwritten first draft, written on a manila envelope, gives a
telling view into how much of his own life and experiences are a part
of the song. The first line in the recorded song is “You rode the
Goodnight-Loving.” On the original draft, it is written first as, “I
rode the …” and then penciled in as “We rode the..” But, as
the lyrics go on, even in the first draft, fewer of them are changed.
You can see that once the idea took hold, the story flowed. And it
flows, likewise, from the voice and guitar of Don Edwards, gripping
listeners and leaving them with the lasting echoes of its rich
message, strong and true.
Joel says that he began working on the
song right after the Western Folklife Center’s National Cowboy Poetry
Gathering in Elko, Nevada in 2001. He said that “As often happens, I
leave Elko full of inspiration. It is the catalyst that makes
inspiration come into fruition.” He says that he wanted to pay
tribute to and to recognize writers such as Charlie Siringo, Andy
Adams, “Teddy Blue” Abbott, and Larry McMurtry.
The last lines of the song were inspired
by the passage by T. K. Whipple that introduces Larry McMurtry’s
Lonesome Dove, “All America lies at the end of the wilderness
road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our
forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We
live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness
still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we
dream.”
The song reflects Joel Nelson’s working
life, expressing his spirit and that of the many others who’ve taken
their individual stand as cowboys and ranchers, choosing a life that
might be hard to explain to many in today’s world, but never to those
who live it:
It was a poor way to make a living
And you threatened to quit—but then
When the herd bedded down at the shank of evenin’
You knew you’d do it over ag’in
Through the thick and the thin
You’d do it ag’in
To all those keeping that life alive and
sharing their stories in poetry and music, here’s looking at you.
Here’s Looking at You
You rode the Goodnight-Loving
Went up the Chisholm too
You trailed three thousand to Kansas City
And you wintered with Teddy Blue
Here’s looking at you
Here’s looking at you
You rode with Ranger Goodnight
You helped him tame the land
You learned the Llano Estacado
Just as well as the back of your hand
When you rode for the brand
You rode for the brand
You’ve been three times to Sedalia
With a cook and six-man crew
You came dang near losing the herd and your hair
To a passel of renegade Sioux
But you saw it through
You saw it through
And you courted the dancehall beauties
‘Till they picked your pockets clean
If it happened once you let it happen twice
Up in Dodge and Abilene
And places between
Every place in between
From a heat wave in Palo Pinto
To the frostbite on Raton Pass
You looseherded cattle through a Southwestern drought
In the quest for water and grass
Alack and alas
Huntin’ water and grass
Then you trailed home the fittest
survivors
When the word came of late summer rain
And you reveled in respite for weary riders
And three pounds a day in gain
The respite of rain
And three pounds of gain
You drove ‘em up to Montana
Over rivers swollen outta the bank
You started out helping the wrangler’s helper
But you rise right up through the rank
Through the dark and the dank
You rose through the rank
It was a poor way to make a living
And you threatened to quit—but then
When the herd bedded down at the shank of evenin’
You knew you’d do it over ag’in
Through the thick and the thin
You’d do it ag’in
Now a half-dozen generations
Have mourned your passin’ on
But you were just startin’ what still isn’t over
And your spirit saddles up in the dawn
For you are not gone
No you are not gone
We see you in
the Steeldust
In the spark flyin' offfa the show
Maybe we are here livin' what you never dreamed of
But you lived what we never know
Here's looking at you
Here's looking at you
Here's
looking at you—Cowboy
Here's looking at you.
© Copyright 2001, Joel Nelson, Night Horse Songs, BMI,
All Rights Reserved
Virginia Bennett
Red Rock Moon
Yvonne Hollenbeck
Jean Prescott