Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys

Written for Song Lyric Sunday
where our challenge is
“Yee-Haw Get Along Little Doggies”

It’s time once again for Song Lyric Sunday. Jim’s theme this week is “Yee-Haw Get Along Little Doggies” and our challenge is to write about a song that mentions the American West, or one that mentions cowboys, a sheriff, an outlaw, horses, cactus, or tumbleweeds. As you can see by Jim’s kick ass banner, we’re celebrating 145 years since the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral …. the Earp lawmen and Doc Holliday vs the Clanton and McLaury Gangs of no-good varmints. Those movies about those exciting historic events, such as Tombstone and Wyatt Earp are classics; hell, even Star Trek had an episode with an OK Corral theme! I’ve chosen a couple of songs from different eras which were very popular when they came out and still are today. Ok, cowboys and girls. Time to saddle them horses and hit the trail. Giddy-up! 🤠

First on the playlist today is a little song by a group from New Jersey. Formed in Sayreville in 1983, Bon Jovi became famous for blending energetic hard rock with emotional power ballads, selling over 130 million records worldwide. Lead singer Jon Bon Jovi (born John Francis Bongiovi Jr. in 1962) recorded a demo of his track “Runaway” at his cousin Tony Bongiovi’s studio with local studio musicians. When the song became a hit on New York radio station WAPP, he assembled the band and signed with Mercury Records. Original members included Jon Bon Jovi (vocals), David Bryan (keyboards), Richie Sambora (lead guitar), Alec John Such (bass), and Tico Torres (drums). The release of their third album, Slippery When Wet (1986), made them global superstars; it featured chart-topping anthems like “Livin’ on a Prayer”, “Wanted Dead or Alive” and “You Give Love a Bad Name”. They followed it with another massive commercial success, New Jersey (1987). Jon Bon Jovi was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009, and the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Written in just a couple of hours by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora in the basement of Sambora’s mother’s house, “Wanted Dead or Alive” was released on March 3, 1987, as the third single from their blockbuster 1986 album Slippery When Wet. The track was heavily inspired by Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page”. Bon Jovi drew a parallel between Old West outlaws and the grueling, transient lifestyle of a touring rock band riding into town, playing shows, and leaving before sunrise. The “steel horse” in the lyrics refers to their tour bus, and the “loaded six-string” refers to the guitar. Peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, it made Slippery When Wet the first glam metal/rock album to spawn three Top 10 hits. A stripped-down, acoustic performance of the song by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards directly inspired the creation of the MTV Unplugged series.

This is “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi

Up next this week is Marty Robbins (born Martin David Robinson in 1925), known as country music’s “Renaissance Man”: a successful recording artist, songwriter, stage performer, actor, author, and stock car racer. His versatile baritone enabled him to handle a wide variety of musical styles, making him one of the more successful crossover artists during the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout his career, he recorded country, western, rockabilly, Hawaiian, gospel, and pop music, with his specialty being country-pop ballads. Robbins started singing professionally in 1951, signing with Columbia Records; he remained with the label throughout his career and had a total of ninety-four records on the country charts with sixteen reaching the #1 position. Robbins’s strongest love was for the music and lore of the Old West. He won a Grammy for what became his signature song, the self-penned “El Paso,” a 1958–1960 hit that topped both the country and the pop charts. Robbins’s 1959 album, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, eventually sold more than one million copies. He also excelled as a songwriter and established his own music publishing company. Other western albums followed, and he even wrote a western novel, The Small Man. In May, 1982, Robbins was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Marty Robbins wrote his hit song “El Paso” in 1958 while driving through the city of El Paso, Texas, and recorded it on April 7, 1959, at Bradley Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. The idea of a western narrative came to him after listening to the car radio and drawing inspiration from cowboy motifs used in his movie, The Hanging Tree. The name of Feleenna for the cantina dancer was inspired by Fideleena Martinez, a real-life classmate of Robbins. The song tells the tragic first-person story of a cowboy who falls in love with Feleena at Rosa’s Cantina, kills a rival in a gunfight over her, flees the town, returns out of desperate love, and is shot down by a posse, dying in Feleena’s arms. At 4 minutes, 38 seconds, “El Paso” challenged the industry standard for short two-minute radio tracks, proving that a long-form story ballad could become a massive mainstream hit.

This is “El Paso” by Marty Robbins

BONUS TRACK: In 2005, our eldest son was alone in a sports bar in NYC when this next song started playing. He was drinking his beer, minding his own business and singing along to the song when a beautiful strawberry blonde walked up to him and said “I can’t believe you know the words to this song”. And the rest, as they say, is history. That was 21 years ago and they just celebrated their 19^th wedding anniversary. This one’s for Will and Dawn.

This is “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)” by Big & Rich (Big Kenny & John Rich)

Yee-Haw Get Along Little Doggies

Big thanks to Jim Adams for hosting another great Song Lyric Sunday this week and every week. Be sure to follow his link and check out his site.

Thanks for stopping by and listening to some great music. I hope you enjoyed the theme for this week as well as the information and music I featured.

That’s all she wrote, kids. See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2026

^{Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated, and may not be used without permission. Thank you for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}