Lyrics Van Dyke Parks

Van Dyke Parks

Cowboy

Paniolo cowboy in a field of sugar cane

Once there was a forest where they hid there in the rain

Cowboy bowboy cowboy

Wanderin wahine under locks of raven hair

Beads of inspiration

Hoping he would not forget just where

Heyup cowboy

Up above the canopy in the highest branches of a tree

He would take her longingly and say One day you'll belong to me

I forgot to mention it was nineteen forty-one

Zeros kept a-comin like to blanket out the sun

Cowboy cowboy

So they lay suspended dreaming of some kind of god

With their limbs akimbo and extended to the mind of God

Cowboy

And the night without regret says it's time to let your hair down low

There they lay in silhouette he would say I'd stay yet have to go

King Kamehameha met with Captain Cook uopn the shore

Lookin at all the cattle asked him

What the hell are all these for?

Cowboy cowboy cowboy

Gone now is the forest and the lovers of the trees

Now there is a chorus playing golf who say in Japanese

Kau-boi