Show #18: PETER LAFARGE (Show #1 of 2)
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MEL BERNAM (ANNOUNCER): Here is Radio New York, "Folk Music Worldwide", a program devoted to the best in folk music throughout the world showcasing the top performers and authorities in the field. Now your host for "Folk Music Worldwide," Alan Wasser.

ALAN WASSER (HOST): Hello again and welcome to "Folk Music Worldwide." With us today on "Folk Music Worldwide" is Peter LaFarge, a folk singer who is, oh, I guess, a combination of everybody's image of both sides of the American West.

He's part cowboy, part Indian. Before we get into our conversation with Peter LaFarge, why don't we play a selection of his cowboy music, "Black Stallion?"

[Song Performance: "Black Stallion", Peter LaFarge]:

Lyrics:

There's a black stallion loose in the mountains and the mesas.
Cabbaleros tell the tale over their cervezas.
He's never worn a saddle, never borne a brand.
Though many men have tried, he's untouched by human hands.

Well the wise ones let him run,
let him go and let him come.
Running free, running free.
There's no stallion, roan, or dun
that can catch the restless one
running free, running free.

He's a seldom and a solitary legend of the badlands.
And he's scattered many colts up and down the Rio Grande.
You can catch him if you see him.
You can catch him if you dare.
Dare to capture thunder and to ride the desert air.

But the wise ones let him run,
let him go and let him come.
Running free, running free.
There's no stallion, roan, or dun
that can catch the restless one
running free, running free.

Fences do not keep him out.
Corrals ain't held him yet.
And if you think they're going to, I'm covering your bet.
And if in the spring, a baby colt is wild and black,
just give him a rebel name
and don't get on his back.

For the wise ones let him run,
let him go and let him come.
Running free, running free.
There's no stallion, roan, or dun
that can catch the restless one
running free, running free.

There's a black stallion loose in the mountains and the mesas.
Cabbaleros tell the tale over their cervezas.
He's never worn a saddle, never borne a brand.
Though many men have tried,
he's untouched by human hand.

And the wise ones let him run,
let him go and let him come.
Running free, running free.
There's no stallion, roan, or dun
that can catch the restless one
running free, running free.

(end of music)

ALAN: Peter LaFarge doing "Black Stallion" on Radio New York Worldwide’s Folk Music Worldwide. Peter, can you tell us something about the background of that song?

PETER LaFARGE (GUEST): You bet, Alan. When I came back from Korea in about ’52, I guess, I was rodeoing around New Mexico and there was this big black horse, wild horse - not a little wild horse, but a big wild horse.

I know you think wild horses are little tiny mustangs. This was no little tiny mustang. Kind of a throwback, he must have been of some sort. And he was just jumping fences and getting in among the thoroughbred mares and messing up those breeding lines.

And they kept putting big prices on his head, and they shot him, and they poisoned him and they run him into a box canyon with Piper Cub airplanes and they walled him up and he got away. And then he became something that you can't kill. He became a legend particularly among the Indians out there, my people out there.

ALAN: Can you tell us something about your background with the Indians?

PETER La FARGE: Well, my father, Oliver LaFarge, the way he always told it to me and my sister, Povy... That's P-O-V-Y, Povy, not T-O-B-Y. As a matter of fact, her name means spring sunflower.

We were last of a tribe of Narragansett Indians that were wiped out, and we were adopted at birth by the Santa Clara Pueblo Hopi Indians. They're near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

ALAN: Do you do many songs of the Indian background from either... Are there many folksongs from Indians or...?

PETER LaFARGE: Oh, yes, you see, this is part of our heritage. We sing all the time, and a man is always making up songs. And every year, a man may sing his own song.

This is all a part from set religious pattern songs that have been inherited and brought down for 2,000 to 3,000 years, you know. So the only difference between myself and any other Indian, is I'm the first Indian to sing to other people and other Indians about, well you know, our various tribulations, our victories, our hopes, our pains and so on and so forth.

ALAN: Well, would you recommend any songs in particular that our listeners might be interested in?

PETER LaFARGE: Well, if you want to really kind of be Indian, I think "Vision of a Past Warrior," which comes closest to being an accurate, oh, how would you say, I don't like the word "English," and I don't like the word "white man," well a modern interpretation of an Indian lament of the past.

It's talking about the Cheyenne, the Sioux, the Cherokee, all that bunch that, with the passing of the buffalo, was the passing of their greatness. Of course that wasn't necessarily true of the Cherokees, but that's another subject. Why don't we listen to it?

ALAN: All right, "Vision of a Past Warrior" as sung by Peter LaFarge.

[Song Performance: "Vision of a Past Warrior", Peter LaFarge]:

Lyrics:

I have within me such a dream of pain.
That all my silver horseman hopes rusted still.
Beyond quicksilver mountains on the plain.
The buffalo are gone, none left to kill.

I see the plains grow blackened with thatched dawn.
No robes for winter warmth.
No meat to eat the ghost white buffalo's medicine gone.
No hope for Indians, then I see defeat.
Then there will be changes to another way.
We will fight battles that are legends long.
But of all our glory, none will stay.

Who will remember I sang this song?

(end of music)

ALAN: "Vision of a Past Warrior," as done by Peter LaFarge. Peter, I understand you also have the name Peter Bucking-Horse.

PETER LaFARGE: Yeah.

ALAN: What's the background on that one?

PETER La FARGE: Well, that was the name given to me, it's a second name given to me by the Indian peoples. I was a bronc rider. For 10 years I was a rodeo cowboy. From the time I was 17 until I was 27, I was a professional bronc rider all over the United States.

ALAN: You say that's the second name they gave you?

PETER LaFARGE: That's right.

ALAN: How many names is an Indian given?

PETER LaFARGE: Well, he can be given several, usually three. You have a birth name, which in my case is Pokoyonye [Spelling?], which I won't tell you what it means because it's a name that indicates where, in this case, my uncle, who was head of the winter people in Santa Clara Pueblo, gave me his name and this would impinge on our religion, which we do not talk about.

Then your second name, which is given to you as something to use and often given to you in English. And mine was given to me in laughter. You know, Indians do laugh. It was Peter Bucking-Horse.

ALAN: Well, now the name LaFarge, I understand, is also quite an illustrious name, quite a history amongst the LaFarges.

PETER LaFARGE: Well, that's pretty hard. You put a guy on the spot like that and say, "Isn't that an illustrious name? Be illustrious about yourself."

ALAN: Well, I happen to know that it's well-founded in this case. Your father was a well-received novelist, wasn't he?

PETER LaFARGE: Yes, he won the Pulitzer Prize for a novel called "Laughing Boy." It was about the American Indians. I guess I better not go into exactly what it's about. Why don't you all read it? Great fighter for American Indian rights.

ALAN: Well now, you say you were also a bronc rider. Did you pick up many songs from the cowboy world?

PETER LaFARGE: Yes. I was raised on a ranch in Colorado by a man named Andy Kane, due to a divorce in my family. And Andy raised me as a cowboy, to be a cattleman, which didn't work out to well.

I'm still a good cowboy, but I'm a minstrel, not a... cows don't... There's something about cows, they just don't...the conversation you can hold with the rear end of a cow is mighty limited.

But I picked these songs up, I guess I started recording...I recorded first for the Library of Congress about 1949, then again in '51, '52, singing all these old songs. I learned them before I even know it was...I didn't know it was folk music.

I didn't know I was singing folk music until it got to be fashionable and somebody told me about it.

ALAN: What would be one of your favorite songs from this cowboy area?

PETER La FARGE: I like "Trail to Mexico" for several reasons. One of them being that the theme will be readily recognized both as one stolen by, or used by many classical musicians and also by Hollywood and behind many, many Western things.

Here is the original song. It also has the cowboys concept of himself, which is very romantic. And so it tickles me. It's a sad song. It's a sweet song. It's a trail song.

It's a song set to the trot of a horse, not the walk. All cowboy songs are set to the rhythm of a horse at a walk or a trot. And if people could understand that, I believe they'd sing them better. And this is a trail song, so it's a trot.

ALAN: Well, all right, the "Trail to Mexico" as done by Peter LaFarge.

[Song Performance: "Trail to Mexico", Peter LaFarge]:

Lyrics:

I say, young man, I want you to go,
And follow this herd down to Mexico.
It was in the merry month of May
I started for Texas far away.

Through rain and snow,
It was a lonesome go
As the herd rolled on into Mexico.

It was in the springtime of the year
We started out to drive them steers.
I left my darling gal behind.
She said, "Sweetheart, you're only mine."
Her caress was soft and her kiss was sweet,
Saying, "We'll get married next time we meet."

Through rain and snow,
It was a lonesome go
As the herd rolled on, down to Mexico.

When I arrived in Mexico,
I wanted my girl but I could not go.
So I sent a letter to my dear,
But not a word for a year did I hear.

We started back to my once loved home.
I asked for the gal I’d called my own.
They said she'd married a richer life.
Therefore, wild cowboy, find another wife.

Oh buddy, oh buddy, please stay at home.
Don't be forever on the roam.
There's many a gal more true than I,
So pray don't go where the bullets fly.

Well, damn your go,
Damn the bullets too.
God pity a woman who can't prove true.
I'm heading back where the bullets fly,
And stay on the trail till the day I die

(end of music)

ALAN: "The Trail to Mexico," as done by Peter LaFarge.

We'll be hearing more of Peter LaFarge's music in just a moment, but first, this message.

(short pause for commercial)

All right, this is Alan Wasser again, back at Radio New York Worldwide's "Folk Music Worldwide." Let me just, very quickly, urge you again, if you possibly can, to drop us a note and let us know you heard the program.

It's the only way we have of knowing if anybody's listening. And it's very important. At least mention the show in a letter, say, to postmark New York, or something, so we know you heard it. Tell us what you thought about it. If you have any suggestions, let us know.

All right, let's get back to Peter LaFarge. Peter, we've got time I think for one more song. I see on your album here a song that I know is originally an Irish song, but is now sort of the very traditional, almost seems like one of the songs that people immediately associate with cowboys on the West, "Cowboy's Lament."

PETER LaFARGE: That's right. This is the greatest. This is the greatest of them all, just as that same song hawked in Dublin in 15-1600 became St. James Infirmary for the blues. Here is the greatest night herding song, this is to a slow walk, ever written, "The Cowboy's Lament."

[Song Performance: "The Cowboy's Lament", Peter LaFarge]:

Lyrics:

As I walked out
In the streets of Laredo.
I walked out in Laredo one day.
I spied a young cowboy
Wrapped up in white linen.
Wrapped up in bright linen
And cold as the clay.

I see by your outfit
That you are a cowboy.
His words he did say
As I boldly stepped by.
Come sit down beside
Me and hear my sad story.
Got shot in the breast
And I know I must die.

It was once in the saddle,
I used to go dashing.
Once in the saddle,
I used to go gay.
Well I first took to drinking
And then to card playing.
Got shot in the breast
And I'm dying today.

Get 16 cowboys
To carry my coffin.
Seven pretty ladies
To sing me a song.

Put a good bronc tiger
On board of my coffin.
To raise hell as you carry me along.

Put the red, red roses
All over my coffin.
Red, red roses
All over my pall.
Put the red, red roses
All over my coffin.
Roses to deaden the clods as they fall.

"Go get me a cup of cold water,
to cool my parched lips,"
the cowboy then said.
Before I returned,
his soul had departed.
He'd gone to the roundup.
The cowboy was dead.

We played the fife lowly.
We beat the drums slowly.
Laid the dead march
As we carried him along.
For we all loved that cowboy,
So brave, young and handsome.
We all loved our comrade
Although he'd done wrong.

(end of music)

ALAN: "The Cowboy's Lament," as done by Peter LaFarge. Peter, we're out of time. There's an awful lot more good material that we could use. Do you think you could come in again and do a second show with us for next week?

PETER LaFARGE: Alan, anytime.

ALAN: Well thank you very much. If listeners will be with us again next week, again, we'll have Peter LaFarge and "Songs of the West."

MEL BERNAM (ANNOUNCER): This has been "Folk Music Worldwide." Devoted to the best in folk music throughout the world, spotlighting top performers and authorities in the field. If you have any suggestions, requests, or comments, why not write in to "Folk Music Worldwide, Radio New York, WRUL, New York City, 19 U.S.A." This has been a Music Worldwide presentation of Radio New York Worldwide.

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