Een klassieke “Western ballad”, op de plaat gezet door zo ongeveer iedereen van enige betekenis, van Johnny Cash tot John Cale. Frank Maynard claimde in de jaren ’20 in een interview het origineel rond 1910 geschreven te hebben, maar de meeste muziekhistorici denken dat Streets of Laredo al heel oud is.
Streets of Laredo is gebaseerd op The Unfortunate Rake, een Ierse ballade die vermoedelijk dateert uit de late 18e eeuw. De meeste mensen kennen The Unfortunate Rake dankzij de a capella vertolking door Brendan Gleeson in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs van de Coen Brothers.
As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a dear cowboy wrapped up in white linen
Wrapped up in white linen and cold as the clay
“I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy”
These words he did say as I boldly stepped by
“Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story
I am shot in the breast and I know I must die
“It was once in the saddle I used to go dashing
It was once in the saddle I used to go gay
But I first took to drinkin’ and then to card playin’
Got shot in the breast and I am dying today
“Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly
Play the dead march as you carry me along
Take me to the green valley, there lay the sod o’er me
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong
“Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin
Get six pretty maidens to bear up my pall
Put bunches of roses all over my coffin
Put roses to deaden the sods as they fall
“Then swing your rope slowly and rattle your spurs lowly
And give a wild whoop as you carry me along
And in the grave throw me and roll the sod o’er me
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong
To cool my parched lips,” the cowboy then said
Before I returned his soul had departed
And gone to the round-up, the cowboy was dead
We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly
And bitterly wept as we bore him along
For we all loved our comrade, so brave, young, and handsome
We all loved our comrade although he’d done wrong
