
Lyrics
(American folk song)
All day on the prairie in the saddle I ride,
Not even a dog, boys, to trot by my side,
My fire I kindle with chips gathered round,
I boil my own coffee without being ground.
I wash in a pool and I sleep on a sack
I carry my wardrobe all on my back
For want of an oven, I cook bread in a pot
And sleep on the ground for want of a cot
My ceiling’s the sky, my floor is the grass
My music is the lowing of herds as they pass
My books are the brooks, my sermons the stones
My parson’s a wolf on his pulpit of bones
And then if my cooking’s not very is complete
You can’t blame me for wanting to eat
But show me a man who sleeps more profound
Than the big puncher boy who sleeps on the ground
My books teach me ever consistence to prize
My sermons that small things I should not despise
See also
- Subject: cowboy
- Harmony: chords I & V
- Meter: 6/8
- Scale: major
- Source: Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads, John Avery Lomax, 1910, p. 96
- more lyrics
YouTube
- PDF of song with chords
- MIDI file
- Listen to the melody

