"Year of ’83," a new song from Cowboy Sutra

Have you ever lamented a time when you could not be close to a loved one as they were dying? That is what this re-make of an old classic cowboy song is about.

“Trail to Mexico” starts with a young man vowing to change his errant ways and leave “the crowd that was so gay.” He tells us it’s the year of ’83, 1883 that is, when gay had a different meaning than it does today. He’s determined to get a real job, and ends up as a cowboy trailing cattle to Mexico. Somehow, as I worked on the song, I got tangled up in centuries and started writing a story from the perspective of 1983.

Recording of “Year of ‘83”

I’ve released a new song from Cowboy Sutra each of the past seven weeks. First, I share the song recording, then I write about its history, meaning, and values. I’ve found each week’s writing causes me to discover the song anew. We are down to the last two songs, each of which holds values that are personal and challenging.

I’m headed off to Elko, Nevada later this week, to give a talk about John Lomax and his early collecting of cowboy songs. It’s the 40^th Anniversary of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. I’ve always loved that word “gathering,” and it amazes me that we have gathered annually so many times across the decades for this wonderful event. I am grateful for the role I got to play in its unfolding.

Today’s song tells the story of a cowboy stuck in the wilds of Mexico while his brother is dying of AIDS in San Francisco. I don’t claim the words are factual, but the value of the song is real. It’s about being your brother’s keeper and even though our family has not been touched directly by AIDS, through the years I lost friends to the disease, and I remember an interview on the radio with Cleve Jones, founder of the Names Project that created the AIDS Quilt. The quilt was the size of two football fields, and each of its pieces had been designed and sewn by the loved ones of someone who died. It toured twenty-four cities across the country. Jones explained that many of the squares were made by mothers who had lost sons and could not share that grief in their own communities, fearing that their friends would judge them. The quilt was a way to claim the place their lost ones held in the family of humanity. Songs can do that, too.

I grew up with two older brothers, never thinking I had a role as their keepers. I assumed as big brothers, they would always have my back. I only learned that this value is reciprocal, not one-sided, when I became my brother-in-law’s keeper in the fall of 2023.

My wife’s brother Blade had lived a hard life that included a few years riding with a motorcycle gang and a longer battle with drugs and alcohol. He lived his last thirty years sober, but he became essentially a hermit, a way, I think, to keep himself far from temptation. He was definitely road-worn, and he looked rough. Many people rejected him out-of-hand. He was close with Teresa and eventually with me, my sister Carolyn and my daughter Anneliese. We knew him as a complicated but generous man with a quirky sense of humor. I realize now I didn’t get to know him as a true brother until he was succumbing to cancer in a Veteran’s care center in Salt Lake City. He may have looked like the scariest biker dude out there, but the better I knew him the more I saw how loyal he was, how protective and loving he was to Teresa and to our whole family. He was as honorable and vulnerable as he was tough. I think about him almost every day.

Blade’s situation wasn’t the same as the brother in my version of “Year of ’83,” but I think the depth of my experience with him made me imagine the lingering sorrow of those who didn’t turn up for their brothers during the AIDS epidemic. He was an unexpected gift, and he taught me a lot about love. I hope life is like music. You get better at it with practice.

The Original Song

Carl Sandburg wrote that “The Trail to Mexico” was “a cow trail classic, to be delivered earnestly, like a witness who knows his names and dates.” John Lomax, the great collector of cowboy songs, said this song was, “the most beautiful cowboy poem in the language."

Carl T. Sprague was the first to record the song, on Victor in 1925. Take a listen.

My Recording

I sing the song with the harmonium drone as an underlay. The banjo adds the mournful feeling.

Lyrics

I made up my mind to change my ways

Quit my crowd that was so gay

To leave my home, just heading out West

To prove myself down in old Texas

It was the year of eighty-three

A.J. Stinson, he hired me

He says, “young fellow, I want you to go

To follow the herd down to Mexico.”

I joined the crew in Abilene

Laying low, that was my thing

Watching close, the cowboy band

Working hard to become a hand

My friends back home, need to leave the nest

My brother too, he’s heading west

To San Fran town, he needs to be free

His way is clear, but it’s not for me

The trail is long and its lonely too

A foreign land, just a’herding through

The danger mounts with every day

But I’m thinking more of the golden Bay

I make the call to my closest mate

Too sick to talk, they call it Aids

Oh brother, oh brother, I love you so

I’d trade my life for your loving soul

A cowboys life, the only life I know

But the pain inside, just seems to grow

I left my brother to a lonely end

And there are no words for my cowboy friends

We’ll run those steers down the Rio Grande

We’ll keep them safe in this foreign land

I’ll pray each night for a guiding light

My brothers love is shining bright

And now my brother is gone so long

Just an old cowboy, with a lonely song

Thinking back to the ones I’ve known

I’ll finish my life down in Mexico

I’ll finish my life down in Mexico

Note: Though the original song is called by different titles it refers to Mexico. The original A.J. Stinson really did trail his cattle from Texas to New Mexico. In my song I have the cowboy trailing ‘a horseback to old Mexico which probably would not have happened in real-life 1983 where stock trucks did most of the transport across the border.

the real A.J. Stinson