POETRY SPOT

 

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Ron, Tim et al in the US, here is an American item in the nature of the Australian bush poets and reminiscent of The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Tim’s neck of the woods.

It is called Tying Knots in the Devil’s Tail and is an original poem by Gail Gardner set to music by Michael Martin Murphy and his band in Red River, New Mexico. Hear him tell the story of the poem and hear him and his boys sing it by clicking on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYDxvvmdMI

I admit it scans better as a song than as a poem but it is a bit of fun.

"Tying Knots In The Devil's Tail"

Oh, way up high in the Sierra Peaks

Where the yellow jack pines grow tall

Sandy Bob and Buster Jiggs

Had a round-up camp last fall

They're takin' their ponies and they're runnin' irons

Maybe a dog or two

And they allowed their brand on every long-eared calf

That come within their view

Now many a long-eared dogie

That didn't hush up that day

Had his ol' ears whittled and his ol' hide sizzled

In the most artistic way

Now, Sandy Bob, he said one day

As he throwed his cigar down

I'm tired of this cowography

And all else, I'm goin' to town

Well, they saddled their ponies and they struck them a load

And how them boys can ride

And them was the days that an ol' cowboy

Could oil up his ol' insides

Well, it started out at the Kentucky bar

At the head of the whiskey row

And they wound up down at the depot house

About forty drinks below

Well, they set 'em up and they turned them around

And they went the other way

And I'll swear the godforsaken truth

Them boys got drunk that day

They mounted up and they headed to camp

And they's packin' a pretty good load

When who should they meet, but the Devil himself

Come prancin' down the road

Well, the Devil said, "You ornery skunks

You better hunt your holes

'Cause I'm the Devil from Hell's Rim Rock

Come to gather in your souls"

Sandy Bob said, "Devil be damned

It may be a little bit tight

Before you gather any cowboy souls

You gonna have a hell of a fight"

He swung his rope and he swung it straight

He also swung it true

He caught the devil by both his horns

And taken his dallies too

Now Buster Jiggs was a lariat man

With his rawhide coiled up neat

He shook it out and built him a loop

And he latched the Devil's hind feet

Well, they stretched him out and they tailed him down

And the irons was gettin' hot

They cropped and swallow-forked his ears

And they branded him up a lot

And they left him there in the Sierra Peaks

Necked to a black-jack oak

But before they left, they tied some knots

In his tail just for a joke

So if you're ever up there in Sierra Peaks

And you hear one hell of a wail

It's just the Devil

A feller and a thousand knots tied in his tail

As Murphy says in his background commentary, the Devil had horns, hooves and a tail so they rope him and brand him, even tie knots in his tail as a playful joke. They leave the Devil in the Sierra Peaks, bellowing, tied to an oak by his neck.