Let er' buck girls....

I like buckin horses.

Plain and simple. 

It's an addiction really, a not-so-healthy one, but an addiction none the less. 

I stared riding ranch broncs when I was 17 almost 18, I had no clue what I was doing and waltzed into Cedarville, CA with my rig and a smile. I didn't know anyone, had no clue how to even hold my rein or saddle a bronc in the chute. The guys there that day behind the chute SHOULD have sent me packing back home, but they didn't. They were sweet and kind and very polite, and helped teach me so that when I was climbing onto my 2nd bronc a few weeks later-I knew what I was doing a little bit more.

I wasn't great by any means. I got bucked off a lot, stomped on a lot and rode a few really well that are cherished memories right along side of those moments in life you save in photo albums. I enjoyed everything about it, and still do. 

Around the time I got on my third bronc (At a Curt Casey benefit rodeo in Cottonwood, CA) I found this wealth of history on the lady bronc riders of the old west. I had known girls used to compete in the old days, loved the pictures and read a few books-but hadn't done any true DIGGING into the past.

When I did, I found songs hidden in the dark places in history and started tapping into it with a pen and my guitar, I found stories that were beautiful, tragic, laughter-inducing, too close to home and at the end of the day..always inspiring. 

The women of the era where ladies were bronc stompers always can bring out a new songs, phrase or poem. It conjures up images of women that were ignoring the rules of polite society, making a living, and doing what most of them were raised to do on the ranch everyday. 

Those black and white pictures of tiny women spurring and quirting those big old broncs, brought lyrics up to the surface quickly. 

The history, the stories and the hearts of those old-time ladies inspire me everyday. And this song was written for them, about them, for the women who gave me inspiration from the back of a bronc.

100 pounds

 Lyrics & Music by Adrian 

You’re a hundred pounds in your underslungs

You’re a hundred pounds in your bronc busting belt

You’re a hundred pounds in your underslungs

your bronc belt and your Montana peaked hat

Headed run aground

Shout the sound of freedom on an outlaw’s back

So let’er buck gals

Grab some mane tear some hair let’er buck gals

He aint getting anywhere

Let er buck gals this life aint dead yet

Let er buck gals

Just spur em in the neck

Bonnie Vera Rose and Kate

Mable, bertha and lou lou

You just paved the old dirt road for girls like me these days

When you’re raised in the wild

From a child

Grown into a tough little woman

riding anything that moves

It ain’t hard to understand

She can’t quit the hard rough life

And when the years claim her bones

Or the broncs claim her life

She live on in our songs

And the way we live our lives

Let’er buck gals

Grab some mane tear some hair let’er buck gals

He aint getting anywhere

Let er buck gals this life aint dead yet

Let er buck gals

Spur em in the neck

You gals were ladies then

my have things changed

I wanna ride the wind and I want to rope crazy ideas

And they say think before you jump

But that first pitch out the chute and their disapproval made me grab my rope and stick

Let’er buck gals

Grab some mane tear some hair let’er buck gals

He aint getting anywhere

Let er buck gals this life aint dead yet

Let er buck gals

Spur em in the neck

 Most photo's by Mary Williams Hyde, you can see more of her amazing photography at www.Buckaroocountry.com

xoxo

~Adrian 

www.buckaroogirl.com