
Lyrics
(Folk song)
1. He was just a lonely cowboy,
With a heart so brave and true.
And he learned to love a maiden
With eyes of Heaven’s own blue.
2. They learned to love each other
As they named their wedding day
When a quarrel came between them
And Jack, he rode away.
3. He joined a band of cowboys
And tried to forget her name
And out on the lonely prairie
She waits for him the same
4. One night when work was finished
Just at the close of day
Someone said sing a song Jack
T’will drive those cares away
5. When Jack began his singing
His mind, it wandered back
For he sang of a maiden
Who was waiting for her Jack
6. Jack left the camp next morning
Breathing his sweetheart’s name
He said I’ll ask forgiveness
For I know that I’m to blame
7. But when he reached the prairie
He found a new made mound
And his friends they sadly told him
That they laid his loved one down
8. They said as she was dying
She breathed her sweetheart’s name
And asked them with her last breath
To tell Jack when he came
9. Your sweetheart waits for you, Jack
Your sweetheart waits for you
Out on the lonely prairie
Where the skies are always blue
See also
- Subjects: ballads / cowboys / love
- Harmony: I IV V chords
- Melody: tonic triad
- Meter: 3
- Rhythm: ties
- Scale: major
YouTube
- PDF of song with chords
- MIDI file
- Listen to the melody


1 thought on “Cowboy Jack”
Wonderful that you have all the verses that my mother used to sing to us. Mother was a native of
Oklahoma and had a great many “folk” songs memorized. Verses 5 and 6 are sometimes left out.
I’m 83 and I can still remember all the words — so mournful and sincere. Would you consider Jack a cowboy song or a folk song? Any idea when it was written. Thank you for a happy (?) memory.
I’m looking for the lyrics to a cowboy song that began “She was fair as a lily and white as the snow,
and she drank the red whiskey that affects men so.” It’s a cowboy and Indian fight and probably not
politically correct now, but we girls thought it was so romantic! She is killed and he sings at the end
about his “darling sweet wife.” Always thought it was Fair as a Lily but can’t find it anywhere.