Cowgirl's Lullaby

Although Fullerton's curriculum vitae spans the continent, many remember him best for his cowboy songs and Texas swing dance tunes. It was a sometimes-mania for him. He called his frequent throes of cowpokery "flying off the panhandle."

During those periods, he'd don his signature ten-gallon hat, chew Herculean quantities of Skoll tobacco (he was a renowned spittoon marksman, winner of the 1965 Treefrog, Texas, Golden Gob), and utterly forget his otherwise chronic distaste for fire ants, drought, sand storms, heat, and gun-slinging dipsomaniacs. This condition colored his love life dramatically. He once confessed to Kinky Friedman over a rapidly shrinking pile of the Kinkster's signature Peruvian marching powder: "Show me a woman who can saddle a horse, bulldog a Power Wagon across an arroyo, and sing 'Blood On the Saddle,' and I'll show you a woman who oughta head for the nearest convenient hills before I propose."

Songs on this page:

Lariat of Love
A Nighttime Living It Up
Walt's With Me
Alberta
Sweet Water
Hot Springs
Gene Autry Pajamas
Destiny
Appomatox
The Jukebox of My Despair
Tequila, Tequila
The Cowgirl's Lullaby

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1. Lariat of Love
copyright Leon Fullerton

She chased me from El Paso,
caught me in her lasso,
this lonesome dogie was her heart's desire.
Yes, I been roped and hog-tied,
now I'm her maverick, she's my bride,
been branded by her red-hot kiss of fire.

Love, love, love's what she was after,
she chased me clear across the USA.
I said, "Cowgirl, do I hafter?"
Now I'm her brahma, she's my mama,
this ain't no horse opera drama,
she's got me in her love corral to stay.

She trailed me up the Chisolm
and down the Goodnight-Lovin,
soon there wasn't no place left to hide.
It ain't that she was lovelorn,
she just loves a good old longhorn.
That one-girl posse sure knows how to ride!

Love, love, love, that's what she rustled,
and I just thank that big lone star above.
This old bull has sure enough been hustled.
My ranging days are over,
I'm rolling in the clover,
lassoed by her lariat of love.

Lassoed by her lariat of love!

During Fullerton's triumphant 1965 tour of the far west, Patsy Montana dubbed him Laureate of the Lariat. On his subsequent album, Tastes Better If You Kill It 'fore You Stick It In the Skillet, he dedicated this song to Patsy.

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2. A Nighttime Living It Up
copyright Leon Fullerton

Some folks like their coffee,
some folks like their tea,
some folks like a tasty little toot,
and that's just fine by me.
Some drink to forget to remember
all the memories they forgot to drown --
spend a nighttime living it up
and a lifetime living it down.

Pulled over on a busted blinker,
cop said, "Ain't I seen you somewhere?"
I said, "Mister Blue, you are some kind of mistaken.
Was someone else with my sav-wah flare."
He said "Naw, I never forget a donut interuptus,"
and he took me for a ride downtown.
Spend a nighttime living it up
and a lifetime living it down.

A nighttime living it up,
a lifetime living it down,
folks used to leave me alone,
no one's fool but my own,
now I am everybody's clown.
I oughta get a break
for one bitty mistake,
but that ain't what the jury found!
Spend a nighttime living it up
and a lifetime living it down.

I said to my intended, "Indeed I do."
She said, "And you know, I bet you always will."
So she left me twisting slowly at the alter
with a ring and a catering bill.
I've suppressed the text of next,
but I've heard about it from everyone in town.
Spend a nighttime living it up
and a lifetime living it down.

So I went to visitate my little kiddies,
but I never got past the lawn:
my ex had a brand-new bulldog,
and he knew which side his bone was buttered on.
I saw their sweet angel faces smiling in the window — that's when Cujo put me on the ground!
Spend a nighttime living it up
and a lifetime living it down.

A nighttime living it up,
a lifetime living it down,
folks used to leave me alone,
no one's fool but my own,
now I am everybody's clown.
It should be understood,
I've come around for good,
but I guess that's just too profound.
You spend a nighttime living it up
and a lifetime living it down.

It was the day of my inauguration,
president of the whole damn world.
There were jugglers, acrobats, a hundred brass bands,
a thousand flags unfurled.
There was a mighty sea of faces -
but every one of 'em wore a frown!
Spend a nighttime living it up
and a lifetime living it down.

A nighttime living it up,
a lifetime living it down,
folks used to leave me alone,
no one's fool but my own,
now I am everybody's clown.
I oughta get some slack,
'cause I'm back on track,
but I'm a man of ill renown.
You spend a nighttime living it up
and a lifetime living it down.

Fullerton felt that jail time was overkill, jurisprudence-wise, for a broken tail light. He mentally composed this in Indianapolis during an evening of otherwise uneventful incarceration and committed it to paper and posterity immediately upon release.

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3. Walt's With Me
copyright Leon Fullerton

Waltz with me, darling, the night is still young,
for you are my only and I am your one.
Tomorrow's a memory forgotten today,
while the fires burn bright and the mandolins play.

I'll hold you closer and whisper your name,
and say that I love you again and again.

Waltz with me slowly, the night's nearly done,
for I am your only and you are my one.
Tomorrow's a memory forgotten tonight,
while the mandolins play and the fires burn bright.

You'll hold me closer and whisper name,
and say that you love me again and again.

Fullerton met his first wife, Anastasia del Grasso, in British Columbia at a wedding reception for one of his rodeo friends. It was a cute meet. Dateless, he struck up a conversation with del Grasso about her boots, a pair of alligator Tony Lamas. (Fullerton was a life-long subscriber to the theory that women like shoe compliments.)

Just as Fullerton was asking whether she was there by herself, her date returned from the bar with a beer in each hand.

“No,” she said. “Walt’s with me.”

The band happened to be playing “Tennessee Waltz,” so Fullerton said, “My pleasure! You don’t mind, do you, Walt?”

Fullerton finished composing “Walt’s With Me” before he and del Grasso had finished the first dance. Walt finished both beers himself.

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4. Alberta
copyright Leon Fullerton

Alberta, come down by my way any time,
we gonna drink us a bottle of wine,
Alberta, come down by my way any time,
Alberta and me gonna feel just fine.

Ashes to ashes, in dust we trust,
we gonna burn, gonna walk that line.
Alberta come down by my way any time,
Alberta and me gonna feel just fine.

We gonna dance like pines in a high wind,
sing like birdies on a party line,
Alberta, come down by my way, honey,
Alberta and me gonna feel just fine.

Alberta, come down by my way any time,
we're gonna drink us a bottle of wine,
Alberta, come down by my way any time,
Alberta and me gonna feel just fine.

Alberta, come down,
we're gonna drink us a bottle of wine.
Alberta, come down,
Alberta and me gonna feel just fine.
Alberta and me gonna feel just fine.
Alberta and me gonna feel just fine.

Here's where Leon learned a fundamental rule of songwriting, so often broken by well-intentioned lyricists otherwise in command of their faculties: Never name a song after a sweetheart.

A week after Fullerton first sang the song for her, Sea World Weeki Wachi mermaid Alberta Karpinsky took off for Juneau with an artist who made scrimshaw hash pipes out of antlers and dealt uppers to cover his losses. Fullerton wrote the (thankfully) much more commercially successful "The Best Song That I Ever Wrote (Shoulda Never Wrote For You)," which was originally published as the B side of the "Alberta" single and appears on Division Street in this collection.

Fullerton (in the Jan Wenner interview): "You never know. The Lord knows. The rest of us are just blind-folded, spun-around, sugar-shocked five-year-olds playing Pin the Tail On the Hurricane."

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5. Sweet Water
copyright Leon Fullerton

The taste of sweet water, lonesome smell of the pine,
makes me remember when you were still mine.
The breeze on the hillside, like a Doc Watson song,
makes me forget just how long you've been long.

I have waited a lifetime for the touch of a hand.
If I wait till I'm buried, you still won't understand.
I gave you a promise, you gave me a lie.
With mouth full of ashes, how could I reply?

Put my fate on a ticket, put my life on the line.
There's a train in the morning to put your memory behind.
There's a river that's spoke of. It runs to the west,
where the rain never falls on the one loves you best,

where the taste of sweet water, lonesome smell of the pine
will let me forget that you ever were mine,
where the breeze on the hillside, like a Doc Watson song
will let me remember just how long you've been gone.

Like most sentimental songwriters, Fullerton spent a good deal of time contemplating how to requite an unrequited love. And like most sentimental songwriters, he never solved the problem. The above “Walt’s With Me” was certainly the first song he wrote for Annie del Grasso. “Sweet Water” was the last.

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6. Hot Springs
copyright Leon Fullerton

Since I touched down in Hot Springs,
you been my lucky charm,
done throwed away my rabbit's foot
when your hand touched my arm.
I love you well, my Annabelle,
and I'll be ever true,
whatever I should win I'll spend on you.

Dear Annabelle, my sugarplum,
I pity these poor rubes,
them little sixes perk right up
when you blow on the cubes.
In the whole great state of Arkansas
ain't no one else alive
could make me throw away my nine-to-five.

Were you in a USO show
or a Broadway chorus line?
I've always craved a gal like you
to woo and wine and dine.
Do you come her often,
or only mating time?
Hot Springs been burning on my mind.
Hot Springs been burning on my mind.

These bed springs get much hotter,
we'll burn the hotel down.
Ain't had me this much fun since when
the carny come to town.
Well, I was just a little tad,
but I knew I'd go far -
now here I am, and honey, here you are.

There's many grades of ball and chain,
and mine's too fine for me,
so I cut loose to skin the goose,
test my destiny.
Take my watch and lucky cufflinks
and my wedding band to pawn.
Dear Annabelle, I'll miss you when you're gone.

Were you in a USO show....

Gustavius Gunn, Fullerton’s uncle on his mother’s side, had heard of stalwartly predictable husbands who went out the front door to get a newspaper or a shave and never returned. He’d always believed they were milquetoasts with rich but unrealized interior lives, the Walter Mittys of the modern world. Their wives were shrews, their children sloths, and their jobs soul-numbing conveyor belts to the cold, silent grave.

His story, when he ventured out his own Little Rock door on sunny Sunday afternoon, wasn’t like that. His wife was lovely, his children lively, and his job stimulating, if lacking in remunerative blessings. (He was a reporter.)

But his wife, Arnelle’s, latest outrage — selling his prized silver-plated dog racing trophy to cover the grocery bill — was...was...he couldn’t find a word that would do proper justice to the unspeakability of the act. And he was damned if he was going to try.

He went out for a drink. Which somehow turned into a bender, his first and last. The bender, which lasted two months, started with a fling in Hot Springs, the pre-Vegas sin city of the south, and took him on a fool's odyssey of Joycean proportions.

When Arnelle bailed him out of a Texarcana jail (upon hearing of Gunn’s situation, she promptly sold another chrome-plated trophy), he was ready to go home. And she was ready to let him, with the understanding that next time there "wadn't never gonna be no next time."

(There wasn’t.)

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7. Gene Autry Pajamas
copyright Leon Fullerton

This ain't goodbye, it is just adiós,
we were never too tight but always real close.
I was down in the mineshaft admiring the view,
with my eyes full of sand and my head full of you.

Next time you're talking to your little sister,
tell her next time I see her I'll be sorry I missed her.
Give me a sour mash slug and a Tennessee chaser,
to clean this much slate takes a powerful eraser.

I've been around and I've been a square,
but I've never been here by the time you got there.
Next time I'm in Mobile I'll give you a ring.
Don't try to hock it, won't be worth a thing.

I'd trade all of the kudzu in all of the South
to believe just one word coming out of your mouth.
I'd trade all Alabama's daughters and mamas
to see you once more in Gene Autry pajamas.

This isn't just bad luck, it's Satan's trap door:
I need at least five cards, can only draw four.
This isn't just fate, it's the luck of the draw,
to hold aces and eights and be playing your pa.

So this ain't goodbye, it is just adiós,
we were never too tight but always real close.
I was down in the mineshaft admiring the view,
with my eyes full of sand and my head full of you.

I was down in the mineshaft admiring the view,
with my eyes full of sand and my head full of you.

Most of Fullerton’s family and friends think that “Gene Autry Pajamas” was inspired by his second wife, Dorothy Leibowitz. She did have a younger sister, Hannah, whom Fullerton had dated briefly and unsatisfactorily before taking up with Dorothy.

They were Texas panhandle country women. Fullerton described them in a letter to his brother, Lionel, as “pillars of prairie pulchertude, but short on temper and long on memory.” With both of them, Fullerton often reflected, everything was feud fodder. “Anything you said could and would be used against you,” he said. “Again and again and again.”

Their father, J.L., a plate glass salesman, wasn’t much older than Fullerton, but he was big, fast, and according to Fullerton, mean. Fullerton also considered his father-in-law an accomplished card cheat and avoided playing him whenever he could diplomatically get out of it.

J.L. held to the philosophy that all’s fair in cards and war, but made Windex window-pane clear to Fullerton that, “When it comes to my little girls, cheating’s out.”

After their divorce, Dorothy moved to Mobile and found a job engineering at the studio of the briefly successful Tonebone Records. Immortalized in song by her ex, her now-legendary Gene Autry pajamas are part of the private memorablia collection of Tonebone founder and CEO Max Rideout, along with a mint copy of the “Pajamas” single’s first pressing and Fullerton’s lyrics, hand-scrawled on six Tradewind Tiki Lounge cocktail napkins and a Carling's Black Label beer coaster.

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8. Destiny
copyright Leon Fullerton

I know you'll never leave me,
for our love is destiny.
Take one look in your rearview,
that's me crying, on my knees.
Your tailgate and a string of cans
is all that I can see,
but I know you'll never leave me,
for our love is destiny.

I heard you say "I do!" to him.
You never did to me,
and so I could not hold my peace
but spoke to set you free,
and as they drug me from the church
for all the world to see,
I cried, "You'll never leave me,
for our love is destiny!"

My tux was torn and tattered,
but my faith, it would not fray,
so when, at last, they threw the rice
and lovely pink bouquet,
I plucked them flowers from the air
and swept you in my arms
and swore I'd not forsake you, dear,
or let you come to harm.

I know you'll never leave me....

"Destiny" was loosely inspired by an incident in New York in the spring of 1957.

Fullerton’s brother Lionel didn’t fall in love as often as his little brother, but he usually fell harder. Though Lionel penned several dozen excellent songs, it didn't come as continuously or unstiflably to him as to Leon, and Leon believed that his own God-imposed talent gave him an emotional buffer against heartbreak, whereas Lionel's thinner skin afforded poor protection against the belt sander of life. “A song is the valise where you pack up your blues," Leon said. "Then you snap it shut and drop it off at the baggage window. Then you throw away the claim check. Then you torch the train station, let valise go up in smoke, pawn your guitars, and split for the coast.”

Fullerton strove for historical accuracy on this song, but the account Lionel gave when Leon retrieved him from the supervision of the local law enforcement establishment the following Monday morning was sketchy, inconsistent with other reports, and possibly hyperbolic. Or possibly not.

The best man at the wedding was a friend of rock pioneer Jesse Stone, whom legendary producer Ahmet Ertegun felt "did more to develop the basic rock 'n' roll sound than anybody else." Stone's “Don’t Let Go” is said to have been inspired by an artful recitation of the event.

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9. Appomatox
copyright Leon Fullerton

"You've traveled far from Canada. You ride your mare quite well.
You took a ball at Gettysburg, where both your brothers fell,
and struck out for the Yukon to stake a miner's claim,
but killing winters pushed you south, and here you would remain."

"It's seven summers come and gone," the soldier made reply,
"since old men at Appomatox decreed no one else must die.
I stayed true to Old Glory, and I’ll stay true to you.
Because I love a rebel girl, that's all that I can do."

"You must be gone, by darling Yank. My father must not see
that I could love a soldier who engaged his cavalry.
He lost his son to gangrene and his right hand to the sword,
and this would surely send him swift to meet his just reward."

"Come with me now, my rebel girl. Of me him need not fear.
We'll ride west to the golden shore, and there a family rear."
"It cannot be!" the lass she said and pushed him mightily.
"And now, sir, you shall take your leave, your love no more to see."

Letters Fullerton’s great-grandfather Eldred Cotton wrote to eastern relatives were the basis of several Fullerton tunes. This is a love-found-love-lost tune, but the real-life story had a happy ending. While Eldred didn’t talk the Louisiana girl into eloping, he did make it to southern California, where he became an early pioneer of the vintner’s craft in Paso Robles, married into a distinguished but financially ravaged ranching family whose roots traced back to the conquistadors and established a family that carries on the tradition today in a micro-winery that produces a reliable income and an agreeable selection of wines.

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10. The Jukebox of My Despair
copyright Leon Fullerton

I come by your place last Friday night,
thought I was taking you out.
Foolish me thought we had a date,
that's when I found out.
I felt like a all-day sucker,
you played me for a fourteen-carat fool:
You was in the arms of another.
I guess I lost my cool.

I went down to Juan's Bolero Club,
my sorrows for to drown,
down in my cups and up to no good,
that's when you slunk 'round.
You said you was sorry, honey,
and please don't make no scene,
and you still love me and you still need me,
and please don't treat you mean,

and I said, "Don't you pop no quarters
in the jukebox of my despair,
don't you play that golden oldie
'bout how you still care.
Don't you do no box-step
on the bunions of my heart.
If I ain't your hit single,
it's time for us to part."

With you snakeskin boots
and your allidile bag
and your danged old crocogator tears,
you done kept me coming and going
and coming again for years.
Well, my first mistake was your lucky break,
when I told you I love you true,
but now it's bye-bye, baby and don't look back,
'cause tonight I'm through with you.

But I musta had a few too many
of my favorite sidekick, Jack,
'cause the next thing I know, the sun is glaring at me
in the back of your Cadillac.
Coulda passed for a limosine liberal,
'cause, honey, I saw red.
You beat me again, and it sure did hurt,
that's why I lost my head,

I said, "Don't you pop no quarters...."

I must have a permanent round-trip ticket
on the Bleeding Heart Express,
'cause every time I climb on board,
I come back to this same old mess.
And I sound so damn convincing,
I'm a regular Oscar nominee,
but I guess I knew right from the start
you'd be the end of me,

and I said, "Don't...."

Fullerton had a history of attraction to fickle women. We don’t know which one this is about.

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11. Tequila, Tequila
copyright Leon Fullerton

List whilst I tell you a tale of true woe
'bout that old wild west demon what is my worst foe.
I don't mean banditos or the cavalry's sword,
I mean demon tequila, when the first round is poured.

Tequila, tequila, I know I done wrong,
there's another dead cowboy and another quart gone.
Tequila, tequila, I know I done wrong,
there's another dead cowboy and another quart gone.

Rode up from Sonora, the sun, it was high,
and curse me to say it, but Lord, so was I.
I started a-shouting and shooting the air
to let the good townfolk all know I was there.
A man with a badge said, "Kid, I'll take that gun."
I said, "Aw, come on sheriff, I was just haveing fun."
And then I went crazy, I shot that man down,
and turned my horse, Lightning, and lit out of town.
And I've only the demon tequila to blame,
'cause when I get drunk, lord, I just ain't the same.

Tequila, tequila....

Don't ask me no questions. You don't want to know.
Just throw down that strongbox, then you can go.
Ain't seen a gold eagle since I don't know when,
but there's blood on the trail -
lord, I've done it again.

Tequila, tequila....

Got lost in the foothills, howled at the moon.
Bust my poor ankle, knew I'd be dead soon.
Come sun-up, I seen 'em, the good boys in blue,
clumb up on a rock for my last howdy-doo.
I tried for the captain, my shot, it went wild.
Lost my damn balance. The soldiers just smiled.
They took me and drug me on down to a tree.
I cried, "Lord, I ain't guilty. Hang the bottle, not me."

Tequila, tequila....

One of many tunes Fullerton called his loser ballads. "Nothing like a gunfighter song. Or a drunkard song. Or a song about perfidy and just desserts. Best if you can roll 'em all into one tune. Saves you a passel of songwriting time."

This was inspired by a gravestone epitaph in Tin Ear, Texas:

Douglas "Little Tex" Beaumont
1845-1866
Hunted for killing a man. Hanged for killing a bottle.

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12. Cowgirl's Lullaby
copyright Leon Fullerton

“Yippee kiy-oh,” the coyotes sing
when the moon goes gliding by.
Was that a moony coyote crooning a tune
or “The Cowgirl’s Lullaby?”

A sweet breeze whispers in the aspen trees.
in the shadows, green leaves sigh.
Was that the whispering wind a-calling
or “The Cowgirl’s Lullaby"?

She twirls a pearly six-gun
to catch the bandits on the trail,
she strums a Spanish six-string
to rock the bandits to sleep in jail.
She can make a bobcat take its nap
and a bobcat be polite,
and she will sing “The Cowgirl’s Lullaby”
when she tucks the hands in tonight.

There’s a handsome wrangler sings “Home on the Range,”
he’ll be home from the range by and by.
Was that “Give me a home” you heard just now
or “The Cowgirl’s Lullaby?”

There’s a handsome wrangler sings “Home on the Range,”
you can bet he’ll be home by and by.
Was that “Give me a home” you heard just now
or “The Cowgirl’s Lullaby"?

Or the Cowgirl's Lullaby"?
Or the Cowgirl's Lullaby"?

Traveling through the San Luis valley in southern Colorado on tour with Tanya Hyde and the Leatherettes in 1963, Fullerton tipped his hat to a young woman sitting in front of the sheriff's office. She was Travis-picking a flat-top guitar and struck up some chat.

"You spin a colorful brand of yarn, stranger," she said, "but I'm bespoke." She held out her engagement ring for his edification, her hair drifting to one side, to reveal the badge on her vest. "Wouldn't be surprised if you were a mite bespoke, yourself," she added, returning to her finger-picking.

He allowed that we was, and more than somewhat. Her beau, she told him, was a local ranch hand. They compared a few notes and agreed that they were two of the luckiest guit-pickers in the world - even if Fullerton Wasn't lucky that day.

Fullerton wrote the song with his daughter Gwen in mind and recorded it while still on tour. Within a few months, the song became a minor favorite on the Chuck Wagon Network. Soon after, Fullerton was surprised to receive a phonograph record - the kind you used to be able to make in a coin-op boot - of the song, sung, played, and mailed by the sheriff.

“Usually I do something to get put in jail and wish I hadn’t,” he said in the Crawdaddy interview. “That was one time I didn’t and wish I had.”

"Cowboy's Lullaby" remains Gwen's favorite.

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"I want to pillow my head
near the sleeping herd
while the moon shines down
from above,
I want to strum my guitar
and odo-lay-eee-hee,
oh, that's the life that
I love."
Patsy Montana