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Oh Bury Me Not The song “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” is largely considered one of the most famous cowboy ballads of all time. Although first published in 1910 in John Lomax‘s Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, the song’s roots go back even further. More recently, Colter Wall made a beautiful version along with a video.

“Bury Me Not” originated as a song about the sea, called “O Bury Me Not in the Deep Deep Sea.” The lyrics to the song, “The Ocean Burial” (or “The Sailor’s Grave”), were written by preacher and poet Edwin Hubbell Chapin and published in 1839 in a literary magazine. Chapin was born in New York on December 29, 1814, later living in Vermont, Virginia, and Massachusetts. George N. Allen later put music to the words of Chapin’s poem.

“Oh, bury me not in the deep, deep sea.”
These words came low and mournfully,
From the pallid lips of a youth who lay
In his small cabin bed at the close of day.

At some point, the song developed into a cowboy lament regarding the prairie. “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” appeared in various publications in the early 1900s. The song remains very similar to “The Ocean Burial,” as one may see by comparing the opening verse above to the opening verse of “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” below.

“O bury me not on the lone prairie.”
These words came low and mournfully,
From the pallid lips of the youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.

The song is partly about death but also about loneliness and being away from home. The dying cowboy (or sailor) laments that they are far from home and worries that his body will be buried far from home where loved ones cannot “come and weep o’er me.” The real cowboys must have related to the song, feeling isolated from their homes while out on the wide open prairie. It made for a lonely life. In the song lyrics, the cowboy’s comrades “took no heed to his dying prayer. / In a narrow grave, just six by three/ They buried him there on the lone prairie.”

In more recent years, many artists, such as Johnny Cash, recorded the song. “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” appeared in the theme music for the movie Stagecoach (1930). The film featured John Wayne’s breakout performance that helped make him a star.

More recently, Colter Wall recorded his own more introspective version. Here is Wall’s video for “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” Live from Speedy Creek.

Illustration of Edwin Hubbell Chapin via public domain. What is your favorite cowboy song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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The excellent Coen Brothers’ movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) opens with a scene of prisoners in the old South working on a road and singing the work song “Po’ Lazarus.” Unlike many of the other songs on the T-Bone Burnett produced soundtrack, though, “Po’ Lazarus” was not recorded specifically for the film.

Recording of “Po’ Lazarus”

The recording of “Po’ Lazarus” was one of the many recordings made by Alan Lomax and his father John Lomax. The two men visited the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1959 and recorded prisoner James Carter leading a group of other prisoners in the song.

That recording of “Po’ Lazarus” later appeared on Lomax’s 1960’s album Bad Man Ballads credited to James Carter and the Prisoners. The song recounts a sheriff going to arrest Lazarus. Then, the sheriff ends up shooting “Po’ Lazarus”: “Well then they taken old Lazarus/ Yes they laid him on the commissary gallery.”

Finding James Carter

But that background is not even the coolest part of the story. According to The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax by Tom Piazza, the Coen Brothers movie brought a little more good will to singer James Carter.

After the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? became a bestseller, Alan Lomax’s daughter Lomax Chairetakis and others tracked down the 76-year-old Carter living in Chicago. They gave him a substantial royalty check. And then in February 2002 flew him, his wife, and two daughters to the Grammy Awards ceremony. At the ceremony, the soundtrack won the album of the year for 2001.

The New York Times noted that Carter had left home at age 13 and did time in prison for theft, a parole violation, and weapons possession. Before his rediscovery, he barely recalled singing the song for the recording.

James Carter passed away in November 2003, less than two years after his trip to the Grammys. The other prisoners in the recording have never been identified. But together they created an outstanding recording used in a classic film.

What is your favorite song from O Brother, Where Art Thou? Leave your two cents in the comments.