In the Coen Brothers’ movie The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, in the last short, The Mortal Remains, Brendan Gleeson sings the old Irish ballad The Unfortunate Lad. Listening to the directors talk about the film’s soundtrack, Joel Coen mentioned that the old Irish ballad was the basis for the American song Streets of Laredo  whose melody serves as a unifying thread – a leitmotif – throughout the six short segments.

I really like Burl Ives’ cover of the ballad, re-titled Cowboy’s Lament, on his album A Twinkle in Your Eye. His honey-sweet tenor adds pathos to the story of a young man facing death. The lyrics, especially the couplet at the end of the first verse, brought to mind Roberto Ferri’s painting of the XIV Station of the Cross – the white shroud cradling the dead body. I saw the Ferri paintings of the Stations of the Cross – Via Crucis – at the Cathedral of San Nicolò in Noto, Sicily.

The Couplet
I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay

Yes, I can hear you asking; Who the hell pairs a cowboy ballad and a Caravaggesque painting . . . with a Jesus in it?


 

lament

As I walked out in the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay

 1

I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy
These words he did say as I boldly walked by
Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story
I’m shot in the breast and I know I must die

It was once in the saddle I used to go dashing
Once in the saddle I used to go gay
First down to Rosie’s and then to the card house
Got shot in the breast and I’m dying today

Get sixteen gamblers to carry my coffin
Get six jolly cowboys to sing me a song
Take me to the graveyard and lay the sod o’er me
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong

Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin
Get six pretty maidens to sing me a song
Take me to the valley and lay the sod o’er me
For I’m a young cowboy, I know I’ve done wrong

Oh beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly
Play the Dead March as they carry me along
Put bunches of roses all over my coffin
Put roses to deaden the clods as they fall

As I walked out in the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay 2

 
1 Roberto Ferri. “XIV Station of the Cross.” Cattedrale di Noto, Sicily, 2014.
2 Burl Ives. “Cowboy’s Lament.” A Twinkle in Your Eye, Sony Wonder, 1997.