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How do you shortlist eight great Ian Tyson songs from a career that's spanned five decades? We took the easy way out and asked the songwriter himself for some guidance.
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• Story: Ian Tyson — a singing, songwriting Western icon
How do you shortlist eight great Ian Tyson songs from a career that's spanned five decades? We took the easy way out and asked the songwriter himself for some guidance. Here are a handful of personal, downloadable favorites — with albums listed as well, just in case eight isn't enough.
Listen to a clip or download a song to the left. We've also included a couple of Ian Tyson performances for you to watch, too. For more on the singer, visit his website at www.iantyson.com.
Four Strong Winds
"This isn't 'the first song that Ian Tyson ever wrote' like some people have said, but it's definitely the first song I ever wrote that did anything. It's been very good to me and has been recorded by some of my own favorite artists, including Johnny Cash. When I wrote it back in the '60s, I had no expectations at all that it would eventually be polled as the all-time top Canadian song, but I guess this one really belongs to the country now."
(I Outgrew the Wagon, Vanguard, 1989 / Four Strong Winds, Ian & Sylvia, Vanguard, 1964 / The Complete Vanguard Studio Recordings, Vanguard, 2006)
Someday Soon
"Here's another big one from the Ian & Sylvia period that's been covered by lots of others. I don't exactly remember how I came up with the idea, but I just thought it would be cool to write a cowboy rodeo song from a girl's perspective. I wrote it in New York City in Sylvia's Lower East Side flat, a sixth-floor walk-up, in 1964. Or 1965. It's been a while."
(Someday Soon, Ian & Sylvia, Vanguard, 1997 / Northern Journey, Ian & Sylvia, Vanguard, 1964 )
Tyson performs “Navajo Rug” on the Texas Connection hosted by Jerry Jeff Walker
Summer Wages
"'Years are gambled and lost like summer wages.' I was walking down Yonge Street in Toronto in the middle of the winter in the late '60s when I wrote those lyrics, and I think they still probably hold true. It's about my life when I was a kid and it's probably my very favorite of the early songs — so much so that I recorded it again on Cowboyography."
(Cowboyography, Vanguard, 1987 / So Much for Dreaming, Ian & Sylvia, Vanguard, 1967)
Fifty Years Ago
"This is a big hardcore buckaroo song that deals with the wagon cowboys of the '70s and '80s, who are almost completely gone now. The overriding theme in this one is basically, Where did it all go? I guess that's a recurring theme of mine on various levels. I've been thinking about it all morning, in fact, on a new song I'm working on. Where did it all go? I'm in my mid-70s and I still can't quite figure it out."
(Cowboyography, Vanguard, 1987)
M.C. Horses
"This is another end-of-an-era story, a true one, about the sale of eastern Oregon's MC Ranch and its big cavvy [remuda] of buckaroo horses — all 150 of them. The cowboys really embraced this song because the imagery summed up what was going on. Then my civilian fans took to it as well once it got that all-important stamp of approval from the cowboys. It's on a slightly earlier album, but thematically it really belongs under the canopy of my album Lost Herd, which came out about five years after this song was recorded."
(All the Good'uns, Vanguard, 1996)
The Gift
"The seminal Western artist C.M. Russell is one of the pivotal figures in my life, and this song's an ode to him. Here's this guy who was on the Northern Plains in 1880 and had to completely preserve the West with his talent — his gift. And he does, and it's mind-blowing when you think about it. When I was a little kid growing up on Vancouver Island, I remember having to go to the dentist and being terrified, y'know, because it was strictly Stone Age dentistry back then. And in the waiting room — I remember this so vividly — there was this book filled with beautiful illustrations by this guy named Charles M. Russell, and I never feared going to the dentist again after that, because I knew that book would be there. His work has changed my life."
(Cowboyography, Vanguard, 1987)
Tyson performs “Someday Soon” at the Mountainview Music Fest in Carstairs, Alberta
Bill Kane
"This is one — okay, of many — favorite songs on my new album. [Other favorites include] the title song and 'Fiddler Must Be Paid.' It's about a legendary cow boss named Bill Kane. A couple of people sent me some anecdotal material about him, and the song followed from that. It's probably the last buckaroo song I'll ever write."
(Yellowhead to Yellowstone and other Love Stories, Stony Plain, 2008)
Blaino's Song
"I wanted to include a 'road' song on the new album as a tip of the hat to [Jack] Kerouac — and my buddy Blaino. It's based on four or five days spent with a close friend of mine, an itinerant saddle salesman who lives just south of Tucson. We met in Wickenburg [Arizona] at the end of one of my tours, and he took me through all of these amazing backroads in Arizona and New Mexico — as the lyrics state, 'searching for traces of the disappearing West.' Thankfully, there are still a few out there."
(Yellowhead to Yellowstone and other Love Stories, Stony Plain, 2008)
