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THETRUCKER.COM
Perspective January 15-31, 2020 • 13
‘The Last Cowboy Song’ passes the
torch from horseback to horsepower
Kris Rutherford
krisr@thetruckermedia.com
Rhythm of
the Road
Somewhere along the Chisolm Trail between
the Texas-Oklahoma border and Abilene,
Kansas, the famed horse-mounted cattle drives
of the 1870s gave way to the railroads a decade
later. When trucks came along a half-century
or so after the railroad, trucks — which traveled
along roads, highways and eventually interstates
— replaced the steam locomotive. Not
only could trucks veer off the prescribed pathways
that restricted rail cars, but larger trucks
pulling longer trailers also offered an economical
form of transportation. Cattle became a
commodity delivered largely by the trucking
industry.
Looking back on history, it’s hard to find an
instance where railroad workers were referred
to as cowboys. On the other hand, as trucks
grew more numerous and drivers traveled longer
routes, the term “cowboy” became another
a nickname for truck drivers during the late
20th century. Movies were made, songs were
written and real-life truck driving cowboys
proved the term true.
Sure, a few old-breed cowboys work the
ranches in the American West today, but they
don’t drive herds of cattle to market anymore.
That job, while less perilous than it was a
couple of centuries back, is now performed by
truck drivers — modern-day cowboys, if you
will.
When Ed Bruce penned the lyrics to his
tune “The Last Cowboy Song,” a duet with
Willie Nelson released as a single in 1980,
he seemingly offered listeners the final word:
The cowboy heroes that children of the 1940s
through early 1970s grew up with no longer existed.
But did Bruce possess the credentials to
declare the cowboy “dead”?
Ed Bruce is a native of Keiser, Arkansas,
a small town near the banks of the Mississippi
River in the northeastern corner of the
state. People in northeast Arkansas hoping
to escape the secluded agricultural lifestyle
of the area typically chose one of two routes
— north along would become Interstate 55 to
St. Louis, or south on I-55 to Memphis. The
Bruce family chose Memphis, and that’s where
Bruce grew up. When rock ’n’ roll hit Memphis
and gave birth to Sun Records, Elvis, Johnny
Cash, and other notable music icons in the mid-
1950s, Bruce was in the middle of the action.
He caught on as a mediocre songwriter, with
his most notable offering coming in 1965 with
“See the Big Man Cry,” recorded by Charlie
Louvin. Despite attempts at a recording career
of his own, success in the studio eluded Bruce.
Over the next decade or so, the quality of
Bruce’s songwriting improved, and artists like
Tanya Tucker and Crystal Gayle recorded his
songs. In 1978, everything changed for Bruce
when Willie and Waylon recorded his song,
“Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to
be Cowboys.” He followed this breakthrough
tune by writing a string of hit songs, some with
a Texas theme, such as Tanya Tucker’s “Texas
(When I Die).”
The songs Bruce penned around the Texas
and cowboy theme — combined with his grizzled
mustache and facial skin that looked like
he’d been in the wind too long — offered country
music fans the illusion that Bruce may have
actually been a cowboy at some point in his
life. When he co-starred with James Garner in
the 1981 return of the western television series
“Maverick,” Bruce’s persona was solidified.
If he hadn’t regularly worn a cowboy hat and
boots before, it was time to catch up with the
end of the “urban cowboy” craze. To his fans,
Ed Bruce was a bona fide cowboy.
“The Last Cowboy Song” doesn’t exactly
qualify as a trucking song, but it certainly
provides a good leadup to the introduction of
trucks and the lives of truck drivers as replacements
for the cowboy of old. In the opening lyrics,
Bruce pronounces the death of the cowboy
through music, or as he refers to it, “the end
of a hundred-year waltz”; and he laments the
end of the dance with the tag, “another piece
of America’s lost.” He goes on to tell a brief
history of the cowboy, a history that carried on
much longer than the railroad and lasted longer
than trucks have been on the highways, at least
to date. Likewise, he eulogizes the cowboy as
an art form, noting the paintings by Frederic
Remington and books by Louis L’Amour. After
paying homage to the American cowboy, Bruce
shifts gears with a spoken stanza that places his
tune in category of “this could be a trucking
song if,” saying:
“The Old Chisholm Trail is covered in concrete
now,
“And they truck ’em to market in fifty-foot
rigs.
“They blow by his markers never slowing
to reason,
“Like living and dying was all he did.”
“Markers,” of course, is a reference to the
small signs in the interstate median noting
where the original cattle drive trails crossed
what are now 75 mph travel routes, like the one
west of Oklahoma City marking the Chisolm
Trail crossing.
While “The Last Cowboy Song” doesn’t
exactly pay a compliment to truck drivers, it
does pay homage to them — sort of a passing
of the torch. For that matter, when one considers
the less-than-altar-boy image Bruce painted
in “Mama’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to
be Cowboys,” perhaps he’s not doing anything
other than singing it as he sees it.
Until next time, if you want to hear a song
that’s been transformed into something which
all drivers can relate, give a listen to Ed Bruce’s
“After All.” The lyrics are a pure love song,
with no mention of a truck — but it does go
down as the only country song in history to
open with the line, “There’s a parking lot…”
That’s something truck-driving cowboys can
all agree is a move in the right direction. 8
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