It’s amazing the things I’ve learned just from researching this article series. Maybe it’s because I started Sing Me A Story I never really thought about music as storyteller, just something to dance to or have on in the background, usually the latter. Since that time I’ve seen country songs based on Norse mythology, bouncy tunes about serial killers inspired by a ballad opera, and learned that songs can have sequels, sometimes by the original artist and sometimes not.
We last saw Marty Robbins in this article series with a standalone tale, “Big Iron“, telling the story of an Arizona Ranger with a gun Dirty Harry would be proud of. This time he brings us three songs telling the story of a lovesick fool who shouldn’t have broken out his gun. “El Paso” is a song I mostly heard the first few bars of during one of those compilation album ads but knew there was a story behind it. I decided this round to look into that story and found two sequels. “El Paso” comes from the same album as “Big Iron”, Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs from 1959. Both appear to be the first album on their side of the record according to Wikipedia (question the source).
What I wasn’t expecting looking into this was that this song had not just one but two sequels, one from the point of view of the “Mexican girl” at the heart of the story and the third…wait, it’s a MODERN RETELLING? Are you messing with me, Wikipedia? Well, let’s dive into this trilogy and find out what’s what, starting with the original take, told from the point of view of the young fool in love with a dancer at a cantina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XFIlQTWWRA
Strange, if I read this correctly, our narrator isn’t the hero here. He mentions in the song “My love was deep for this Mexican maiden/I was in love but in vain, I could tell.” That means not only did she not return his affections but he totally knew it. He is not in the right here, shooting this other guy. We don’t know if she was flirting with the other guy or if she had any feelings for either of them. Cantina girls are like saloon girls but in a cantina, at least as far I know because I’ve never been in either. They basically worked there by entertaining the lonely cowboys who came in but rarely got involved with them beyond that.
Then again, were the guys who shot him the good guys? A marshal or sheriff would at least try to take him alive I would think, and even if the guy who got him while on horseback had no choice the dude with the rifle outside the door sure did. If this were a posse you’d think they take him alive for trial. Then again, if he was part of some gang then his boys wouldn’t hesitate. My question is how long our narrator was gone before going back? Was he so lovestruck that he went back maybe an hour or two later? The posse or gang being around the cantina and seeing him to shoot at him means it would have to be time to gather or they stood there for days waiting for him to come back. That’s probably the only really confusing part of the story.
Well, there’s “Feleena (From El Paso)”. The 1966 song from the album “The Drifter” is a third person retelling of events from the girl’s point of view. Maybe we’ll get some answers.
Well crap, that got dark! Wasn’t expecting suicide!
So apparently they did have a relationship but she also had a wandering eye. Killing herself to be with him shows she did care but was too used to the lifestyle she made for herself. I feel sorry for her parents, probably never knowing what happened to her. Do I feel sorry for her? A bit more than our cowboy. There were better ways to solve that dispute, but it wouldn’t be an old time Western ballad if he had. Feleena wasn’t expecting two dead people because of her flirting for drinks and money, and because it was kind of her job at Rosa’s. I won’t go so far as to call her a gold digger but it’s still a sad end to their tale.
Apparently Robins couldn’t let this story go. The title song from 1976’s El Paso City is another telling of the story. This time Robins is a different narrator going over a story he heard. Will we learn something new?
He sang a song…about hearing his original song. What, did he hear the Grateful Dead cover? Yes, there was a Grateful Dead cover. There’s also a German version and a parody that reimagines Rosa’s as a pizza place. The original “El Paso” was inspired by him driving through the town while “El Paso City” was written while flying over it. I wonder why he was so obsessed with tale? I found an article that also referred to this as the El Paso Trilogy that mentioned Robins was working on a FOURTH song but passed away before he could finish it. And yet I’m not aware of a sequel to “Big Iron”.
Maybe it’s my personal taste in stories. Sad endings are rarely what I look for in my stories, and even though Western ballads had a lot of those they weren’t the rule as some comedy likes to make out. WWF/WWE wrestling announcer Bobby “The Brain” Heenan used to joke (in character as a commentator who was pro heel and ran a heel wrestling stable) that if you played a country song backwards the wife took him back and the dog came home. (I forget the third one.) The original song is a decent tale of a fool who took his love in the wrong direction but it just doesn’t excite me enough personally to have all these sequels, parodies, and remakes. The original song was fine as it is. “Big Iron” didn’t need a sequel, and neither did “El Paso”, if you ask me.
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