In the days before cowboy.com
Before Palm Pilots were on the range
There was no grazin on the Internet
To outrun the speed of change

No such thing as corporate cattle
in some cyber-feedin lot
Controlled by big Agri-business
From a New York parkin lot

It ain’t called a bull market for nothin
Runnin cows from the Internet
Your Herford’s is their Nasdaq stock
While they fly over in a corporate jet

What the hell’s a digital auction
Showin yearlins on the latest CAD?
No they ain’t real cows and ranchers
And the fake shore makes me mad

I thought a CD was a cattle drive
And a hard drive was exactly that
And software was your underwear
Or your brand new Stetson hat

When a floppy was a flop-eared mule
He was more than the bottom line
Cause he could pull you out of the mud
And save you alots of time

Windows ‘98 or the latest update
Driven wild by bottom-line greed
Like longhorn steers out of control
It’s just another wild stampede

If you got virus you called in the vet
And you cured every worm you seen
But doctorin a calf and forkin an ear
Can’t be done on a computer screen

Carryin a laptop and a printer
And a Nikon digital camer’
Checkin weight gain and body fat
With an infra-red scanner

Ear taggin cows with radio beeps
Trackin their signal from the air
And chasin ‘em down with ATV’s
Real cowboys don’t think that’s fair

Now a chip is what flew off the log
When you was choppin wood
The faster it hit the more mega-hurts
So chip speed ain’t always good

The speed of the head was a stampede
And a programmer couldn’t fix it
It took real cowboys on real live horses
To head them off or mix it

Cowboys are used to all sorts of bites
Like face flies and skeeters too
But I’ve never felt a gigabyte
But saw one once when it flew

A monitor is a workin cowboy
Who uses his savvy and every pixel
To watch his herd so it doesn’t stray
On to the land of old Claude Dicksel

Now when a maverick cow is hidin out
Makin a crash helmet-cowboy meet her
Use your infrared scan or GPS
Or bike in with a bar code reader

In your OSHA saddle with a safety belt
Feedin her gas instead of hay
Changing tires instead of horseshoes
Makes a cowpoke rue the day

You’re gettin E-mail in your saddlebag
And sendin messages from your palm top
It’s all goin the way of the pony express
And cowboy—Where is it gonna stop?

I know the contentment of cowboy life
‘N it shore ain’t in computers and money
I’d rather be herdin cows for the brand Smellin
hocks spatter’d with desert honey

Ed Keenan © 5-25-00