J Marvin Hunter's

FRONTIER TIMES

Magazine

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Sam Bass Song

Published February 4th, 2017 by Unknown

Frontier Times has received a number of requests from subscribers, asking for the song, "Sam Bass." Recently we found this song in the Dallas Semi-Weekly Farm News. It Is believed to be the complete and correct version. Thirty years ago this old song was heard around every hearthstone and beside every campfire on the range. Many of our older readers remember the tune:

Sam Bass was horn in Indiana,
It was his native home;
And at the age of seventeen
Young Sam began to roam.
He first came out to Texas,
A cowboy for to be;
A kinder hearted fellow
You’d hardly ever see.
Sam used to deal in race stock,
One called "the Denton Mare,"
He matched her in the scrub races-
And took her to the fair.
Sam always coined the money
And spent it mighty free;
He always drank good liquor
Wherever he might be.
Sam Bass had four companions,
Four bold and daring lads.
Jim Murphy, Jackson, Underwood,
Joel Collins and "Old Dad."
Four bolder, reckless cowboys
The wild West never knew;
They whipped the Texas rangers,
And chased the boys in blue.
Sam left the old Joel Collins ranch
In the merry month of May,
With a herd of Texas cattle,
The Black hills for to see.
They sold out at Kansas City
And then got on a spree.
A tougher lot of cowboys
You seldom ever see.

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They started back to Texas
And robbed the U. P. train,
Then split up into couples
And started out again.
Joel Collins and his partner
Were overtaken soon,
And with all their hard-earned money
They had to meet their doom.
Sam Bass got back to Texas
All "right side up with care,"
He rode right into Denton,
His old friends met him there.
Sam's life was short in Texas—
Three robberies he did do,
He robbed the Longview passenger—
The mail and express, too.
Sam had another comrade,
Called "Arkansaw' for short,
He was killed by a Texas ranger
Who thought it was great sport.
Jim Murphy was arrested,
And then released on bail.
He jumped his bond at Tyler
And hit the Terrell trail.
But Major Jones had posted Jim,
And that was all a stall—
It was a plan to capture Sam
Before the coming fall.
Sam met his fate at Round Rock
July the twenty-first.
They filled poor Sam with bullets
And emptied out his purse.
Now Sam is a decaying corpse.
Down in the Round Rock clay,
While Jackson's on the border
A-trying to get away.
Murphy borrowed Sam's good money
And did not want to pay.
So he set out the game to win,
By giving Sam away.
He sold poor Sam and also Barne
And left their friends to mourn.
Jim Murphy will a roasting get
When Gabriel toots his horn.
Some think he'll go to heaven,
For none can surely tell,
But if I'm right in my surmise
No doubt he'll go—the other way

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"Sam Bass Song" is from our new ebook,

The History of the Life of Sam Bass

, available here for FREE

Download instantly your searchable copy which is a collection of all the major articles pertaining to Sam Bass as printed in J. Marvin Hunter's FRONTIER TIMES magazine, between the years 1923-1954.



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