Song of the Vaqueros

Bob Nolan
Original copyright: Republic Pictures 1942

We are the Vaqueros!
We ride that the West we love will live evermore
A strong horse beneath us as they did long before.
‘Twas good for old Bill Cody and it’s good enough for me
For we are the Vaqueros!

The open plains, the summer range, the foothill lanes,
The wagon trains, where nothing changes we will live and die.
For we are the Vaqueros!

He [indicating stout man in suit] should be a Vaquero
And sleep where his blanket is the star-studded sky
And eat where the cactus coals his bacon will fry.
Living in the open ought to do him lots of good.
For he should be a Vaquero!

He never gets out, he’s lame, no doubt,
He’s got the gout, he’s much too stout.
What do you think we ought to do?
Why, he should be a Vaquero!

[measures stout man’s chest] 32! [then measures his waist] 44!
And in a little while it may be more.
Why, he should be a vaquero!
[measures Bob’s chest] 44! [measures Bob’s waist] 32!
We’ll have him looking just like you.
When he is a Vaquero.

The song was written for a scene in a movie script that called for Roy and the Pioneers to persuade a hesitant, overweight man to join a group called “The Vaqueros”. Roy pretends to use a tape measure on the stout man and then compares these “measurements” to those of Bob’s magnificent physique. “My waist measurement was 29” and my chest was 48”. (Bob Nolan, September 24, 1976, at the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony.)

The "Song of the Vaqueros" was never commercially recorded and these words were transcribed from the soundtrack of Republic Picture’s South of Santa Fe (1942). No sheet music has come to light. Republic Pictures still holds the copyright on this song as it was a "song-for-hire". A song copyright in 1942 would be eligible for termination in 1998. Songs written under a "song-for-hire" arrangement are not eligible for termination. They remain the property of the original owner. Bob thought little of the songs he wrote for the Roy Rogers movies. There is no transcription recording.

We do not have any sheet music for this song.