The song “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” is largely considered one of the most famous cowboy ballads of all time. Although first published in 1910 in John Lomax‘s Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, the song’s roots go back even further. More recently, Colter Wall made a beautiful version along with a video.
“Bury Me Not” originated as a song about the sea, called “O Bury Me Not in the Deep Deep Sea.” The lyrics to the song, “The Ocean Burial” (or “The Sailor’s Grave”), were written by preacher and poet Edwin Hubbell Chapin and published in 1839 in a literary magazine. Chapin was born in New York on December 29, 1814, later living in Vermont, Virginia, and Massachusetts. George N. Allen later put music to the words of Chapin’s poem.
“Oh, bury me not in the deep, deep sea.”
These words came low and mournfully,
From the pallid lips of a youth who lay
In his small cabin bed at the close of day.
At some point, the song developed into a cowboy lament regarding the prairie. “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” appeared in various publications in the early 1900s. The song remains very similar to “The Ocean Burial,” as one may see by comparing the opening verse above to the opening verse of “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” below.
“O bury me not on the lone prairie.”
These words came low and mournfully,
From the pallid lips of the youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.
The song is partly about death but also about loneliness and being away from home. The dying cowboy (or sailor) laments that they are far from home and worries that his body will be buried far from home where loved ones cannot “come and weep o’er me.” The real cowboys must have related to the song, feeling isolated from their homes while out on the wide open prairie. It made for a lonely life. In the song lyrics, the cowboy’s comrades “took no heed to his dying prayer. / In a narrow grave, just six by three/ They buried him there on the lone prairie.”
In more recent years, many artists, such as Johnny Cash, recorded the song. “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” appeared in the theme music for the movie Stagecoach (1930). The film featured John Wayne’s breakout performance that helped make him a star.
More recently, Colter Wall recorded his own more introspective version. Here is Wall’s video for “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” Live from Speedy Creek.
Illustration of Edwin Hubbell Chapin via public domain. What is your favorite cowboy song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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