I’ve written quite a few Christmas songs over the years. I used to do an annual Christmas show at the Barrymore Theater, and I’ve certainly done my fair share of family Christmas parties, opening for Santa.
Here’s this year’s song. A tribute to my own West Texas roots, my cousins and grandparents and uncles and aunts. Horses, ranches, water tanks, campfires, and miles of miles of barbed wire all played a small but significant role in the imagination of my childhood.
Merry Christmas to all the little buckaroos, boys and girls, men and women, whose thoughts drift out to the lonely prairie.
Cowboy Christmas Eve
Cowboy Christmas Eve
Cowboy Christmas Eve
West Texas wind blows all around.
Cows settled in. Sun’s gone down.
Hear the sheep and goats call and bleat
Coyote howls through the mesquite
He rolls and lights himself a cigarette
Wipes away the last of the daytime sweat
One final sip from his coffee cup
Three-quarter moon just coming up.
Even in the darkness he can still believe
This cowboy Christmas Eve.
He’s lost his share of fights and his share of love
Done too many things he’s not proud of.
He’s been broken down so much before
He can’t be broken any more…chorus
A photograph in the lantern’s glow.
A mom and baby so long ago.
Tomorrow he’ll be rising with the sun
Spreading hay and cracking ice ‘til the chores are done.
Tonight he’s humming softly a carol tune
While one bright star shines above the moon.
Even in the darkness he can still believe
This cowboy Christmas Eve.
He’s drifting off on his bunkhouse bed
A choir of angels sings round his head
© Stuart Stotts 2013