Goodbye Old Paint

Goodbye Old Paint is a traditional Western song collected by N. Howard "Jack" Thorp in his 1921 book Songs of the Cowboys.^[1] Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.^[2]

Background

In writing about Goodbye Old Paint, Thorp wrote: "Heard this sung by a puncher who had been on a spree in Pecos City. He had taken a job temporarily as a sheep-rustler for an outfit in Independence Draw, down the river, and was ashamed of the job. I won't mention his name.".^[1]

In spite of the specifically-concealed history of the song, many people have been credited with writing it. In 1928, a newspaper in Amarillo, Texas reported that Texas cowboy fiddler Jess Morris had composed it. Apparently Morris' arrangement had previously caught Thorp's eye. Morris never claimed to have written the song, saying that he learned it from a black cowboy named Charley Willis. Western writer and singer Jim Bob Tinsley has said that credit for saving "Goodbye Old Paint" from being forever lost "...belongs to three Texans: a black cowboy (Willis) who sang it on cattle drives, a cowboy who remembered it (Jess Morris) and a college professor (Lomax) who put it down on paper."^[3][4]

References