Story Behind The Song

"Still Ride Horses" was a Spanish western melody Charlene Lockwood cooked up on the piano. Her lyrical partner Edward O'N. Hoyt did some research and found some wonderful stories of rodeo couples, forced to "cowboy up" through the breaks and bruises of rodeo riding and the pain of seperation. The rules listed in verse three are real rodeo rules and superstitions, and the bull that offfers danger and deliverance --- "Happy Endings" --- is a real bull that, despite the promise of his name, has been many a rider's undoing.

Song Description

A ballad sung from the point of view of a rodeo rider missing the wife he left behind for the rodeo circuit. Though the world has grown smaller for many, from the perspective of a man on horseback, still seeing the world through the filter of an old way of life, his wife is still achingly far away.

Lyrics

Marie, my dear, It?s twilight in Tio Sanchez
And the rodeo circuit?s packed in for the night
And I think of you where the Rio Puerco branches
My shoulder?s sore but it?s my heart that isn?t right

Remember I once said nothing could ever hurt me
Though I?ve seen seven seconds turn a young man old
But still when I?m in the chute, there's no one stronger
But without you in this town, I just feel cold

These days some men ride home from Tokyo to Denver
And others ride from Mexico to Rome
And though between us there are just 600 miles
When you still ride horses, that?s a long way home

The rule here?s they don?t let married men play poker
No crossing the clowns, and no food in the ring
No kicking cups, right foot first into the stirrups
Oh, Marie, Marie, this life?s a funny thing.

These days some men ride home from Tokyo to Denver
And others ride from Mexico to Rome
And though between us there are just 600 miles
When you still ride horses, that?s a long way home

This old clown named Bucky likes to tell ghost stories
He says some ghosts chase rodeos from town to town
I know the only ghosts are men without their women
And the only clowns are men who sleep around

(Instr.)

There?s a man in jail here, they say killed his coyote
Who got him through, but he left his wife behind, they said
I think of you, and I would spare this man?s life
You can?t kill a man when he?s already dead.

Next week I?ll win the big one in Las Cruces
It?ll make the papers from Phoenix to St. Lou
There?s a great big purse for a bull named Happy Ending
I think I?ll just hold on like he was bringing me home to you.

These days some men fly from Tokyo to Denver
And others ride from Mexico to Rome
And though between us there are just 600 miles
When you still ride horses, that?s a long way home
When you still ride horses, that?s a long way home

Marie, my dear, It?s twilight in Tio Sanchez...