Country music has covered the finer points of Western living at great length. From nods to saddling up and taking on the wild country to more figurative metaphors about the archetype of a ranch hand, there is no shortage of songs about cowboys in the country space. Check out four of our favorites, below.
Videos by American Songwriter
1. “Rhinestone Cowboy” (Glen Campbell)
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Getting cards and letters from people I don’t even know
And offers comin’ over the phone
In “Rhinestone Cowboy,” Glen Campbell conflates the life of a traveling cowboy to that of a musician in Nashville. I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway / Where hustle’s the name of the game / And nice guys get washed away like the snow in the rain, he sings. Campbell swaps the dirt of the great plains for the glitz of Music City. He’s not singing about a cowboy in the traditional sense, but the same wayfaring, hustling demeanor is there.
2. “LOVE IS A COWBOY” (Kelsea Ballerini)
Rough around the edges, stops you in your tracks
Wrecks you in the worst way when it looks like that
Knocks you off the horse but it keeps you comin’ back
Love is a cowboy
Kelsea Ballerini uses the cavalier reputation of cowboys to describe an intoxicating, if frustrating relationship in “LOVE IS A COWBOY.” Rough around the edges, stops you in your tracks / Wrecks you in the worst way when it looks like that, she sings. You’d think country artists would have exhausted the ways one can sing about a cowboy, but Ballerini proves there are more angles yet to be uncovered.
[RELATED: Behind the Meaning of Kelsea Ballerini’s “LOVE IS A COWBOY”]
3. “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” (Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson)
Cowboys ain’t easy to love
And they’re harder to hold
They’d rather give you a song
Than diamonds or gold
Who better to sing about the particulars of cowboy culture than Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson? Both artists’ outlaw demeanor makes them seem transported from the wild, wild West. They prove their knowledge on the subject in “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” They issue a blanket warning to anyone hoping to get close to one: He’ll probably just ride away.
4. “If I Was a Cowboy” (Miranda Lambert)
Ridin’ off in the sunset, blue eyes under my Stetson
A little lady on the front porch wishin’ my heart would start settling
Big iron hips with the holsters
I’d be lookin’ mighty fine on a poster
Wanted by the law but the laws don’t apply to me
Miranda Lambert fantasizes about the freedom of a cowboy’s way of life in “If I Was a Cowboy.” I’d be lookin’ mighty fine on a poster / Wanted by the law but the laws don’t apply to me, she sings. She wouldn’t be just any cowboy. No, she’d be the top dog in town. I’d be a legend at loving and leaving, she sings, sitting high on her horse.
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