"Spanish is the Loving Tongue" is a song based on the poem "A Border Affair" written by Charles Badger Clark in 1907. Clark was a cowboy poet who lived throughout the American West, and was named the Poet Laureate of South Dakota in 1937. The poem was set to music in 1925 by Billy Simon.
Poem ("A Border Affair") by Charles Badger Clark, was first printed in Pacific Monthly, June 1907.
Following the initial 1907 publication, in 1915 the poem was published in Sun and Saddle Leather
Here's the second edition from 1917
On page 26:
And in 1919 the poem was published in Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp
Collected by John A Lomax
Here's that edition:
On page 67
And in 1921 the poem was published in Songs of the Cowboys.
In this edition "A Border Affair" is credited to the singing of Orville Cox, a Taos Cowboy
On page 10
Billy Simon wrote the melody around 1925 about the time he also "fixed up" one for Gail Gardner's "Sierry Petes".
Twenty
or thirty years later someone added a bridge, which is how it stands
today--a more beautiful song, maybe, but certainly not cowboy style.
Bill Simon, a cowboy singer from Prescott, "spotted Clark's poetic love story
and concluded it should make a good song. Bill thereupon composed an engaging
melody, and before long, dude ranch entertainers and radio performers throughout
the Southwest were singing [it].... Said Bill Simon, who until recently never
received any credit in print for his contribution to the music of the West: `I
can neither read nor write music. I just somehow worked out "Spanish Is the
Lovin' Tongue" as I rode the range, trying to fit the words in a melody I was
striving for. After I got it to the point where it suited me, I started singing
it around the campfires and it seemed to catch on. One night Dorothy Youmans
(sister of composer Vincent Youmans) heard me sing it and was quite taken with
it. Later she wrote out the music for me and played it on the piano down at
Castle Hot Springs while I sang. Well, it sure sounded good.'"
John I. White writes in Git Along, Little
Dogies: Songs and Songmakers of the American West (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1975) that he first heard the song in Wickenburg, Arizona, in
1933. Not knowing where the tune came from, he wrote to Badger Clark for
permission to use the song on the network radio program
"Death Valley Days," where John sang as "The Lonesome Cowboy," (this text appears on pp. 130-31 in Git Along, Little
Dogies).
John noted that Bill Simon recorded his own arrangement of the song for an LP
issued in 1972 by the Arizona Friends of Folklore at Northern Arizona U,
Cowboy Songs vol II (AFF 33-2).
Bill's tune there differed
from the one John wrote down in 1933.
As we see the ORIGINAL poem was called "A Border Affair". It's about a white guy meeting a Mexican girl. In the original poem the reason for his leaving was "she was Mex and I was white". This was changed at some point to the non-politically charged "wanted for a gambling fight".
All the versions following Tex Fletcher's 1936 version omitted the "She was Mex and I was white" line.
I think Bob Miller might be responsible for the omission of that line (he rewrote the lyrics a bit for his 1934 songbook Famous Folio Full of Original Cowboy Songs)
The recordings:
(o) Tex Fletcher (1936) (as "The Border Affair")
Recorded November 16, 1936 in New York City
Matrix 61417
Released on Decca 5300 and Melotone 45011
Decca matrix 61417. The border affair / Tex Fletcher - Discography of American Historical Recordings
Listen here: The Border Affair
Or listen here:
Or to a sample here: Border-affair-Spanish-Is-The-Loving-Tongue.mp3
(c) Texas Jim Robertson (1941) (as "The Border Affair")
Texas Jim Robertson [vcl], Ken Binford [gt], Johnny Cali [gt/banjo], Gene Traxler [bass],
Frank Novak [fiddle/clarinet], Jack Shilkret [piano], Chas Magnante [accordion] + vocal quartet)
Recorded June 30, 1941 in New York City
Released on Victor 27552
Part of 4 disc album set "'Round The Campfire: Famous American Cowboy Songs" (Victor P 84)
Listen here:
(c) Milt Okun and Ellen Stekert (1956) (as "Spanish Is A Loving Tongue")
Listen to a sample here: www.harbel.one/okun/mp3/AdiosMiCorazon.mp3
(c) Glenn Yarbrough (1957) (as "Spanish Is A Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Richard Dyer-Bennett (1958) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Gateway Singers (1959) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Pete Seeger (1960) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue" (IN A MEDLEY)
Listen here (after 1 minute in the YT below)
(c) Chad Mitchell Trio (1963) (as "Adios Mi Corazon")
Listen here:
(c) Ronnie Gilbert (1963) (as "Spanish Is A Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Ian & Sylvia (1963) (as "Spanish Is A Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Limeliters (1963) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Listen to a sample here:
(c) Crew Cuts (1963) (as "Spanish Is A Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Hootenanny Singers (1964) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
(with Björn Ulvaeus)
Listen here:
(c) Marianne Faithfull (1965) (as "Spanish Is A Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Paul Clayton (1965) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Country Gentlemen (1968) (as "Border Incident")
Listen here:
(c) Bob Dylan (1970) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Solo piano-version authorised by Bob, B-side of "Watching The River Flow" (Columbia 7" single)
Another performance unauthorised by Bob of the song with band and backing singers appeared on the Columbia album Dylan.
(c) Bob Dylan (1973) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Judy Collins (1976) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Emmylou Harris (1981) (as "Spanish Is A Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Liam Clancy (1982) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
(c) Michael Martin Murphey (1989) (as "Spanish Is The Lovin' Tongue")
After a few decades Michael Martin Murphey was the first artist to restore the original lyric-line "she was Mex(ican) and I was white" used by Tex Fletcher in 1936.
Listen here:
(c) The Blackeyed Susans (1991) (as "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue")
Listen here:
In 1990 the Texas Tornadoes sang sort of an answer-record (written by Butch Hancock)
Spanish Is The Loving Tongue BUT "She Never Spoke Spanish To Me":
And to close this topic here's a beautiful version from 2012 by Mason Willams and Deborah Henson-Conant and her Electrical Harp
More versions here:
