Cowboys...

Okay, on Wednesday, February 1, Lorca Loca posted this picture of him at age six (?) in a cowboy shirt and with saddles embroidered on the yoke.

My comments:

Ay, qué cute.

All the hullabaloo over Brokeback mountain has me wondering if Annie Proulx ever heard the Pansy Division Song...

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other--
What did you think those saddles and boots was about?
There’s many a cowboy who don’t understand the way that he feels towards his brother
Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out.
More...

Okay, fast forward 2 weeks. On Thursday, Wily Filipino posted that Willie Nelson has recorded this song, for REAL.

I'm having a full-circle moment. Now maybe, like L* you heard Pansy Division perform the song fifteen years ago at Club Fuck. Or maybe, like me, you only found that music six months ago. "Cowboys..." is one of my favorite songs, and since December, I've been listening to it on my iPod as I walk around the lake.

But this is a whole 'nother critter.

When Willie Nelson sings it, you can hear the smile in his voice. And you know why what sells country music is not the words but who's singing them and how. Because, face it, we've all listened to country music and thought "I could write that" or even "I could write better than that," but country music isn't successful because it's the world greatest poetry, but because someone with a gui-tar is crooning it out with leather or velvet or whiskey, or tears. So while Pansy Division sings ALL the lyrics (Willie don't), they manage to make the meter sound torturous and the rhyme gets lost, but that's okay, that's their aesthetic, they're HARD, dammit. But Willie, man, well, go to iTunes and see what people are saying. Let's just say, there's a few more young men in West Texas who are gaining hope from Willie's words.

Plus you can two-step to it.

Dare I hope that Dolly Parton will cover Two Nice Girls' "I spent my last ten dollars on birth control and beer?"