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Ranger's Command
I learned "Rangers
Command" in 1947 as recorded by Woody Guthrie. Many times I have
tried to rewrite it to give the fair maiden who joined the round-up a more
important role, but was never able to produce a version I could keep
active. However, in 1948 I found several different versions where the fair
maiden was killed, which did not occur in the Woody Guthrie rendition that
I learned. I adapted the event I found in a folk song collection (Ozark
Folk Songs, Volume II, collected and edited by Vance Randolph, 1948,
p.199. Published by The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia,
Missouri.) I recorded another version, "The Fair Maid from the
Plains" on my 1961 Folkways album, Songs of the West, which I learned
from the same source as that described for Song No. 25. Come all of you cowboys all over this land, I met a young maiden, whose name I don't know, We started for the canyon in the fall of the year, She rose from her warm bed with a gun in each hand, Loud roared the thunder and down come the rain,
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