Tennessee Stud

(Jimmie Driftwood)

Guy Carawan & Jimmie Driftwood, Newport Folk Festival, 1964.

Download wav-file or aiff-file (551K) of Johnny Cash's version of "Tennessee Stud"
from THE OFFICIAL JOHNNY CASH PAGE.

Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Jimmy Driftwood should be serenely at home on his final journey. The Arkansas legend's ashes will be scattered this week in his beloved native Ozarks, perhaps to the strains of a song he wrote expressly for the occasion...

The elms and oaks have been my dear companions,
    The maples know I've always been a friend,
    And when my dust has settled down around them,
    They'll open their doors and take me in.
    So scatter my ashes o'er the mountains,
    Let me sift down among the leaves,
    Soon I'll be blooming on the hillside,
    Speaking the language of the trees.

MICHAEL LEAHY & MATTHEW WAITE,
"Songwriter Driftwood dies at 91,"
Monday, July 13, 1998.
Copyright © 1998, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Lyrics as recorded by Doc & Merle Watson on "Southbound," 1966,
transcribed by Manfred Helfert.

Omitted verses (in italics) from Digital Tradition (filename: TENNSTUD).
© Warden Music Co., Inc.

In 1959, "Tennessee Stud" reached No. 5 on the country charts in an Eddy Arnold rendition.

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.

enter keywords...