El Paso City

[Ken]

For my Grandfather, Herbie. Gone since 1995, and dear God I miss you tonight Gramp...

El Paso City

Marty Robbins

From thirty thousand feet above the desert floor I see it there below

A city with a legend, the West Texas city of El Paso

Where long ago I heard a song about a Texas cowboy and a girl

And a little place called Rosa's where he used to go and watch this beauty whirl

I don't recall who sang the song but I recall a story that I heard

And as I look down on this city I remember each and every word

The singer sang about a jealous cowboy and the way he used a gun

To kill another cowboy, then he had to leave El Paso on the run

El Paso City

By the Rio Grande

The cowboy lived and rode away but love was strong he couldn't stay

He rode back just to die in that El Paso sand

El Paso City

By the Rio Grande

I try not to let you cross my mind but still I find

There's such a mystery in the song that I don't understand

My mind is down there somewhere as I fly above the badlands of New Mexico

I can't explain why I should know the very trail he rode back to El Paso

Can it be that man can disappear from life and live another time

And does the mystery deepen 'cause you think that you yourself lived in that other time

Somewhere in my deepest thoughts familiar scenes and memories unfold

These wild and unexplained emotions that I've had so long, but I have never told

Like everytime I fly up through the heavens and I see you there below

I get the feeling sometime in another world I lived in El Paso

El Paso City

By the Rio Grande

Could it be that I could be the cowboy in the mystery

That died there in that desert sand so long ago

El Paso City

By the Rio Grande

A voice tells me to go and seek, another voice keeps telling me

Maybe death awaits me in El Paso

[Mike]

Bravo Ken, or should I say RIO BRAVO.

I'll toast your grandfather tonight!

He wrote the song, naming it El Paso, while riding in the car with his family across Texas on the way to Arizona. He had recruited Tompall & the Glaser Brothers to sing backup on some of his earlier songs, and called them in again for the recording session at Bradley Studios in Nashville. It was accompanied by simple Spanish-style instrumentation with Grady Martin on lead guitar and Robbins' own lead vocal. Robbins brought it to his producers at Columbia and soon found out that no one wanted anything to do with the song. He had violated a strict unwritten rule in the music business of the late 50's: you don't make a record that is longer than three minutes. Mitch Miller was the new head of pop A& R at Columbia, and although he liked the song, he rejected it because of its length. A song should have a catchy melody, few words and words which could be easily remembered, and it should feature lots of repetition. Marty's song was none of these things. The song told a story, and although it was ficticious, it was a story that its author wanted the world to hear.

Inspired by the success of Horton's The Battle Of New Orleans, Robbins managed to persuade the Columbia executives to give it a try. He felt that although it told a tragic tale, El Paso was not a depressing song. He also reasoned that the public would be receptive to a cowboy song. Robbins worked to convince some disk jockeys to give it air time, claiming that it would draw new listeners in to country music radio stations.

[bazooka]

Confused?

El Paso (1959)

[smaller] from tsimon.com [/smaller]

In 1976 Marty Robbins took a plane ride over the city of El Paso and wrote a follow-up which he called El Paso City. The song was more-or-less a rehash of the original, and it topped the country charts once again.