A Cowboy Has to Sing

Bob Nolan
Original copyright: March 16, 1939

When each new day is born I go ridin'.
O'er the wide open plains I roam
'Til the sun to the hills goes hidin'.
There will always be someone glad when I come home.

Refrain:
Yippee-ay, Yippee-oa! end of day, home we go.
For a cowboy has to sing and a cowboy has to yell
Or his heart would break inside of him
At the gates of the home corral.

Now the long day is thru on the prairie.
There's a low-hanging sun in the sky.
'Round the home corral we will tarry
And we'll sing of the round-ups in the days gone by.

There's a tired pony glad that it's over.
With a song in my heart, so am I
For tonight we'll be dreaming of clover
And we always will until the day we die.

On the Teleways Radio Productions transcription No. 171 list, a song labeled "The Home Corral" is actually "A Cowboy Has to Sing" led by Pat Brady. Bob's spoken introduction may have caused the confusion. He said, "Our song of the west is a rollicker that rides for home like "Song of the Rover", only this one's strictly for cowpunchers when the roundup's over and the home ranch is dead ahead - the home corral!"

Bob registered a song called "The Home Corral" three years earlier on May 7, 1936 (Cross & Winge) with a second copyright February 16, 1938. "The Home Corral" is possibly the song Patsy Montana recorded in 1933 when Bob was writing prolifically for radio. We are still looking for sheet music for that one.

While Bob was sole composer for songs in the Columbia Pictures' Charles Starrett movies, he wrote "A Cowboy has to Sing" for Call of the Rockies (1938). It was also used in Republic's "Sunset Serenade" and Springtime in the Sierras. The song, with its galloping rhythm and joyous melody, is still a favorite.

"A Cowboy Has to Sing" was registered for copyright on March 16, 1939, as the first song in Bob Nolan's Folio of Original Cowboy Classics No. 1 by American Music, Inc., 1939.

A Cowboy Has to Sing (American Music, Inc.)

LIST OF TRANSCRIPTION RECORDINGS

Orthacoustic Symphonies of the Sage, Transcription disc TR-855, side 2 (1944)

NBC Thesaurus 1926 side A MS-059251-2-F (same as Orthacoustic No. 1 Side B)

Teleways Radio Productions transcriptions: Nos. 20, 48, 70, 104, 128, 171, 227, and 246

10-2-4 Ranch radio show, No. 174 (February 26, 1943) and No. 507 (64858-06) (Apri 13, 1945)

Lucky U Ranch radio show (courtesy of Larry Hopper)
- Transcription disc TR-154/155 (December 20, 1951)
- Transcription disc TR-240/241 (February 14, 1952)
- Transcription disc TR-276/277 (March 11, 1952)
- Transcription disc TR-328 (April 16, 1952)
- Transcription disc TR-405/406 (June 10, 1952)
- Transcription disc TR-465/466 (August 6, 1952)
- Transcription disc TR-531/532 (23 October 1952)