My Only Words of Wisdom: “Radio Edit!”
I’ve been racking my brain for days since my first Kid Rock concert trying to figure out what constitutes a “Cowboy.” When I think of a cowboy, I think of Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. I think of “Happy Trails” and “Back in the Saddle Again.” I think of lyrics like, “Where the longhorn cattle feed/On the lowly Gypsum weed.” Not “Stoned pimp, stoned freak, stoned out of my mind,” as Kid Rock brags in his signature song, “Cowboy.” Perhaps he just got his “weeds” confused.
Call me old-fashioned, but I thought cowboys wore something along the lines of cowboy hats and Wrangler jeans. Even today’s cowboys like George Strait and Alan Jackson still follow suit. They’re not prancing around in brim top hats and unzipped two-piece jumpsuits. Anyway, as much as I don’t think Kid Rock should be classified as country, I do think he has a nice voice when he’s actually singing. I’m definitely not a prude but I did spend most of the concert blushing from his raunchy comments, but I sang along with what I could. By the end of the concert I moved to the front row (thanks to the man in front of me also confusing his weeds). My homecoming date used to listen to “Cowboy” on repeat. Apparently, we listened to the clean version because when Kid Rock got to a certain vulgar part of the song in the concert – “Cuss like a sailor, drink like a mick / My only words of wisdom are…” – I yelled, “Radio Edit!” Dang it! Wrong again!
Will someone please help me figure out what it takes to be a cowboy? So far, here’s the checklist I’ve come up with according to Kid Rock–
- Call yourself and name signature song, “Cowboy.”
- Get married at Tootsie’s.
- Play at the Ryman Auditorium and cover one country song – preferably, "You Never Even Called Me by My Name.”
- Start a brawl and get arrested at Waffle House at 5 a.m.
Wait, maybe not that last one. I obviously know nothing about what it takes to be a “Cowboy.”
©2008 Country Music Television, Inc., a Viacom company. A division of
hotelmotel says:
If you want to know what a cowboy is, there are plenty of books by historians and biographers that discuss real, actual, cowboys.
George Strait, and Kid Rock have nothing to do with cowboys. They are entertainers who play the part of some mythical, romanticized cowboy. Obviously, Strait and Kid and Roy Rogers all interpret the cowboy myth differently. But every one of them is a fake. These people are not cowboys
Not also that westerns (the movies) and cowboy movies also are fiction and have little to do with the day to day lives of cowboys of long times past.
And if they did have Waffle Houses back in the days of cowboys, i do suspect there would have been lots of brawls. So Kid is, in a way, carrying on a disreputable part of the cowboy tradition.
mjayhill says:
Kid Rock wouldn’t know a real cowboy if one threw a houlihan over his slicker brim and branded his left butt cheek.
I’ve always liked Neil Young’s “Are There Any More Real Cowboys” that he did with Willie:
Are there any more real cowboys
Left out in these hills
Will the fire hit the iron one more time
And will one more dusty pick-up
Come rolling down the road
With a load of feed before the sun gets high
Well, I hope that working cowboy never dies
Not the one that’s snortin’ cocaine
When the honky-tonk’s all close
But the one that prays for more rain, heaven knows
That the good feed brings the money
And the money buys the clothes
Not the diamond sequins shining on TV
But the kind the working cowboy really needs
Are there any more country families
Still working hand in hand
Trying hard to stay together and make a stand
While the rows and rows of houses
Come creepin’ up on the land
Where the cattle graze and an old gray barn still stands
Are there any more real cowboys in this land
Are there any more real cowboys in this land
The Packrat from New York says:
Man, relax! Kid Rock’s isn’t sayin’ he IS a cowboy. He’s sayin’ he does the things he does because he WANTS to be a cowboy. He wants to be that thing that’s bigger than him, that benchmark of pride and manhood and status that says what you are in one word. Kid Rock is the early mornin’ stoned pimp and proud of it, but he wants to be a cowboy. Get it?
Kate says:
I can see both points of view on this. Kid could be considered a cowboy in the non-traditional cowboy way, i.e. he’s more of the “does what he wants” type as some of the other commenters implied. He is more of the outlaw type, I suppose. In another sense though, I definitely agree he shouldn’t be considered country and he’s definitely not as classic as the “closer-to-the-real” thing types like George and Alan. There again, I think George and Alan are the types that we modernly consider cowboys. They have a whole different persona I guess than the real cowboys of the wild west. But, no matter what you consider a cowboy, you still gotta love ‘em!
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I think Kid Rock is saying “Cowboy = Outlaw” as he certainly is an outlaw.