02/26/2026
Long story short…
'Too fat to be a cowboy' was a song from the first Shadow Mountain Band record. I wrote the song in the early 2000s as I got to know some of the regular weekend folks that came in for our set at Pappy & Harriet's. I found that a fair percentage of the weekenders actually had day jobs in the city and came out to Pioneertown on the weekends to be cowboys, cowgirls, and bikers. I gradually developed a great respect for people that could maintain two lives and be more involved in their inner life and identity, than their worldly life…
We never played the song on stage because the recorded arrangement didn't really work as a live song. I had always wanted to do something more with the song, and last summer my brother bought me a bouzouki. That is a Celtic instrument, introduced to us by our friend Chris Thile, that could be called a baritone or octave mandolin, strung like a mandolin, but an octave lower, only with the top pair of strings tuned to a D.
Anyway, long story short, the bouzouki inspired me to work up something different with the song. I don't know if I will use it on a future Shadow Mountain band album since it has electric bass and percussion, which we have never used in our old-time roots music band. Still, I will run it by the Shadow Mountain gang (that’s you) to see what their impressions are.
Note, this is a rough mix. If we decide to put it on the next Shadow Mountain Band album, we will spiff it up a bit.
Feel free to make a comment.
