Ghost Riders In The Sky

Lyrics: Stan Jones
Music: Stan Jones

Played in a couple of sessions at Mickey Hart's barn in Novato in the early 1970s but never released. One recording was made on 21 August 1971, probably with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, David Crosby and John Cipollina. The other was part of the "Area Code 415" sessions with Mickey Hart, John Cipollina, David Freiberg and Jim McPherson. Robert Hunter has also played it in solo performance in 2002.

An old cowpoke went riding out on a dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw
A-plowing through the ragged sky, and up a cloudy draw

Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel
Their horns were black and shiny, and their hot breath he could feel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
He saw the riders coming hard and he heard their mournful cry
Yippie-aye-oh, yippie-aye-ay, ghost riders in, in the sky

Their faces gaunt their eyes were blurred, their shirts all soaked with sweat
They're riding hard to catch that herd but they ain't caught them yet
'Cause they've got to ride forever on that range up in the sky
On horses snorting fire, as they ride and hear their cry
Yippie-aye-oh, yippie-aye-ay, ghost riders in, in the sky

As the riders loped on by him, he heard one call his name
If you want to save your soul from hell a-riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride
A-trying to catch the devil's herd riding through these endless skies
Yippie-aye-oh, yippie-aye-ay, ghost riders in, in the sky

It was autumn 1889, and a trail boss named Sawyer was driving a thousand cattle up through Crosby County in Texas to the railheads in Kansas, when he and his cowboys stopped for the night atop a mesa. What happened next is disputed, but in the night, for whatever reason, the cattle stampeded, charging off the hill. Two cattlemen were killed, and around 700 animals died. The next year, another cattle drive stopped in the same place. Again, in the night, the cows stampeded. Again, men and beasts plunged to their death.

Thereafter, cowboys took a dim view of Crosby County. Whispers went round. It wasn't storms or rustlers that spooked the cattle. It was shadowy riders driving them, appearing out of the night and causing chaos. Ghost riders who came from the sky, driven by demons.

For Texans, that's the origin myth of one of the staples of American song: "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend". Stan Jones had been a child in wild Arizona - his parents had been among the first settlers in Cochise County - though he was transplanted to Los Angeles in his youth, and went on to get a master's in zoology from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked scores of jobs and wrote songs in his spare time. At 12 years old, he said, an old Native American told him the legend of the souls that leave their bodies and haunt the sky, as ghost riders, like the ones who had caused chaos in Texas.