Cowboy Take Me Away
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| “Cowboy Take Me Away” | ||||||||||||||
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| Single by Dixie Chicks from the album Fly |
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| Released | November 8, 1999 | |||||||||||||
| Genre | Country | |||||||||||||
| Length | 4:45 | |||||||||||||
| Label | Monument Records | |||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Martie Seidel Marcus Hummon |
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| Producer | Blake Chancey Paul Worley |
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| Dixie Chicks singles chronology | ||||||||||||||
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"Cowboy Take Me Away" is a country song from the Dixie Chicks. Appearing on their August 1999 album Fly, it was released as a single in November 1999 and in February 2000, hit number one on the Country singles chart and made respectable face at number 27 on the Pop singles chart to boot.
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[edit] History
Driven by co-writer Martie Seidel's violin, Emily Robison's banjo, and Natalie Maines' evocative vocals, "Cowboy Take Me Away" quickly became one of the trio's signature songs. The lyric dealt with a mixture of yearning for greater tranquility:
- I wanna walk and not run
- I wanna skip and not fall
- I wanna look at the horizon
- And not see a building standing tall
with plaintive desire for emotional, romantic connection:
- I wanna be the only one
- For miles and miles
- Except for maybe you
- And your simple smile
and simple joyous acceptance against a minor chord turning into major:
- Oh it sounds good to me
- Yeah it sounds so good to me
- Cowboy, take me away ...
Starting with a quiet opening, the record ramps up to a mid-tempo country-pop groove and features violin breaks from Seidel as well as an exhuberant outro. Maines was praised for a "sincere" vocal that escaped the clichés of "Nashville music-factory tearjerkers".[1] Seidel (later Maguire) has proclaimed it one of her "faves" of the Chicks, stating that the titular cowboy was not just a metaphor by saying "It was inspired by my sister Emily finding the love of her life. I always kind of worried about her, and I'm just so glad she found a good guy."[2] (Emily's husband, Charlie Robison, is from small-town Bandera, Texas, self-styled "Cowboy Capital of the World".) As such with this story, it has become a popular song at to be played at weddings.[3] In terms of origination, supposedly the title phrase was in itself inspired by an advertising slogan for corporate entity Calgon.
"Cowboy Take Me Away" has become a staple of the Chicks' concert set lists, appearing from the Fly Tour onwards.
[edit] Music video
The music video for "Cowboy Take Me Away" featured the three Chicks singing the song and playing their instruments inside the top floor of an empty industrial loft type building in some city. Gradually various CGI backdrops of forest floors and snow-covered mountains and the like appear, and the trio cavort about as the song's wish becomes granted.
The filming captured them at the height of their "out there, all-blonde" period, with Maines' hair cropped so short she looked like the country Cyndi Lauper and Seidel with cross-colored braids and locks. The fashion note is held at the start when Robison steps out of car into an urban puddle wearing high hot pink boots.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
| Preceded by "Breathe" by Faith Hill |
Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks number one single by Dixie Chicks February 5-February 19, 2000 |
Succeeded by "My Best Friend" by Tim McGraw |
