Open Range Ahead

Bob Nolan
Original copyright: October 9, 1937

Some folks will spend a lifetime
Searching far and near
For something that’s always been waitin’,
Waitin’ for them right here.

Refrain:
If you like a lot of room around to roam in,
Where any place you stop your heart’s at home in,
If you like to see a campfire in the gloamin’,
There’s an open range ahead.
If you like the sound of lazy cattle lowin’,
Where miles o’ sage and tumbleweeds are growin’,
Then it’s time you knew the only place you’re goin’
Is an open range ahead.

Up in the sky keep a bright sun shinin’,
Out of the West let a clean wind blow,
Here in your heart there will be no pinin’
For somewhere else to go.
If you like to hear the prairie wind a-wailin’
And watch the snowy clouds above a-sailin’,
You can bet your life your heart will soon be trailin’
To an open range ahead.

"Open Range Ahead" might easily have been the young Bob Nolan's theme song—or one of them. "Footloose and fancy free" was his dream or fantasy all his life although, because of his work and his wife, he led a somewhat conventional life. He wanted to travel, he wanted to see all of the world. With the money that should have come to him from his "Tumbling Tumbleweeds", he would have been able to travel constantly. "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" made the music publishers rich but Bob didn't see much from it.

Bob wrote "Open Range Ahead" for Columbia's Outlaws of the Prairie in 1937. The Sons of the Pioneers recorded it right away. The the Sons of the Pioneers recorded it on the Orthacoustic Radio transcriptions in 1940. Two years later, Republic Pictures used it in a Roy Rogers picture, South of Santa Fe.

The song was registered for copyright on October 9, 1937. In 1939 the sheet music was included in Bob Nolan’s Folio No. 1, American Music, Inc.

Open Range Ahead (American Music, Inc.)

SONS OF THE PIONEERS TRANSCRIPTION RECORDINGS

Orthacoustic Symphonies of the Sage, (064352)

Teleways Radio Productions transcriptions, Nos. 47, and 90

Lucky U Ranch radio shows (courtesy of Larry Hopper)
- Transcriptions disc TR-113/114 (November 23, 1951)
- Transcriptions disc TR-162/163 (December 25, 1951
- Transcriptions disc TR-234/235 February 11, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-194/195 (January 16, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-294/295 (March 24, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-369/370 (May 15, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-451/452 (July 28, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-525/526 (October 20, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-684/685 (February 9, 1953)

Smokey the Bear radio show, episode No. 4 (1955)