Tennessee Stud

This song is another great one.  I mean a horse the color of the sun And with green eyes?  Love it!  Many folks have sung this song over the years, Chris LeDoux, Johnny Cash, Doc Watson and Eddy Arnold.  Although the song was originally written by Jimmy Driftwood in the 60's.  I'm most accustomed to listening to Doc Watson's version, however, it was Eddy Arnold's version that made it famous.  So since I'm into showcasing the originals I'm going to share with you the original version HERE.  In my mind it's best to give credit where credit is truly due.  He may not have been a headliner in his day but he did become a member of the Grand Ol Opry in the 1950's.  Another little interesting fact, he actually wrote Johnny Horton's famous song "Battle of New Orleans".  He wrote it in 1936 in an effort to get the high school class he was teaching interested in the event.  So here it is, I hope you enjoy!

Tennessee Stud by Jimmy Driftwood

Along about eighteen twenty-five,
I left Tennessee very much alive.
I never would have got through the Arkansas mud
If I hadn't been a-ridin' on the Tennessee Stud.
I had some trouble with my sweetheart's pa,
And one of her brothers was a bad outlaw.
I sent her a letter by my Uncle Bud,
And I rode away on the Tennessee Stud.

The Tennessee Stud was long and lean,
The color of the sun, and his eyes were green.
He had the nerve and he had the blood,
And there never was a horse like the Tennessee Stud.
One day I was riding in a beautiful land
I run smack into an Indian band
They jumped their nags with a whoop and a yell
And away we rode like a bat out of hell.
I circled their camp for a time or two,
Just to show what a Tennessee horse can do.
The redskin boys couldn't get my blood,
'Cause I was a-riding on the Tennessee Stud.

We drifted on down into no man's land,
We crossed that river called the Rio Grande.
I raced my horse with the Spaniard's foal
'Til I got me a skin full of silver and gold.

Me and a gambler, we couldn't agree,
We got in a fight over Tennessee.
We jerked our guns, and he fell with a thud,
And I got away on the Tennessee Stud.

I got just as lonesome as a man can be,
Dreamin' of my girl in Tennessee.
The Tennessee Stud's green eyes turned blue
'Cause he was a-dreamin' of a sweetheart, too,

We loped right back across Arkansas;
I whupped her brother and I whupped her pa.
I found that girl with the golden hair,
And she was a-riding on the Tennessee Mare.

Stirrup to stirrup and side by side,
We crossed the mountains and the valleys wide.
We came to Big Muddy, then we forded the flood
On the Tennessee Mare and the Tennessee Stud.

A pretty little baby on the cabin floor,
A little horse colt playing 'round the door,
I love that girl with the golden hair,
And the Tennessee Stud loves the Tennessee Mare.

XO Loves,

Me

The Stories They Could Tell

I absolutely Love books.  Any books.  I'm constantly ridiculed when moving for the numerous, super heavy totes full of westerns and romances.  I currently have two flat totes full of unread books in my house now.  Over Christmas I used my mama's Nook like crazy.  I seriously read 15 books over break.  It was great because I could search for whatever I wanted and got it in a nano second and I could read in the dark without any lights on.  Perfect right?  Not really, I almost felt like I was cheating on the real thing.  Actual books have history and tales outside of the stories they contain.  Old books smell like moth balls, most of you may think yuck, but it's comforting in a way.

Our University Library has an amazing collection of really old, worn out, torn and abandoned books in the basement.  I could spend days down there fondly caressing the spines of books tucked away and forgotten.  No one ever goes down there for the books.  Anyone who happens to be down there is only there to study or use computers.  But not I.  There are rows and rows of classics, books published before 1900, books with special inscriptions from loved ones passed down.  My favorites are the books that have cardboard covers and are literally bound with string.  How cool is that? I'll admit, I walk around looking for the oldest looking books and take them down just to see when they were published, or if anything is written inside the covers.  A lot of these old books have been donated and I really find myself thinking of their pasts.  Did the belong to people in OR?  Did they hold regal positions in a ceiling to floor personal library like you see in movies? Were they read and re-read, cherished and coveted?  Or did they sit untouched on a desk or shelf in someones study?  I would love to know each and every books' story.  Call me a nerd, but hey, I love Libraries!

Here are some pictures I took while creeping around in the basement, alone.  I'll add that I currently have 5 of these pungent smelling forgotten books.  I like being the only person who's checked them out since they've been there.  I feel like all books deserve to at least be looked at, if not read.  I doubt I'll be able to single handedly read every never checked out book in the library, but I'm sure going to do my best!  At least with the classics.

 These are the 5 books I have right now, Tennyson, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Leighton and Lehmann

 

Leo Tolstoy, Russian Text

 

Isn't this one awesome? If I can find it again I'm going to check it out next.

Little Red Riding Hood of course. This is one of the books from the set above. There were only 500 copies in Art Vellum and we have copy 450. Copyright 1896

 

I really have no idea what language this even is, but pretty cool huh?

There are just amazing treasures down there I tell ya!

One of my favorites, string binding

Talk about Classic

Isn't this just too cute?  It was the size of my hand and had all kinds of great advice.

There are a lot of books bound this way, and I've never seen any before. 

This one is awesome. An 1880 copy of the Iliad. It doesn't get any better in public libraries. There was even a note written inside from a father to his daughter in 1881.

This ones a little rough from time...

I know I've been on a streak of really long blogs lately, but sometimes I get so excited I can't contain myself :)  I hope you at least enjoyed the pictures.

Xo Loves,

Me