"The Trail To Mexico", also titled "Following The Cow Trail", "Boggy Creek" or "The Hills of Mexico", refers to the cattle trail into the new Mexico Territory, blazed in 1882 by James Stinson.
Stinson's trail went farther west and through drier country than any route at the time.
He was said to have driven twenty-thousand head of cattle from west-central Texas to the Estancia Valley in New Mexico in that year. Cowboys usually shortened New Mexico to Mexico.
The song is lyrically closely related to "Buffalo Skinners" and to a lesser extent with "Canaday-I-O": SEE: Joop's Musical Flowers: Canaday-I-O (1855) / Buffalo Skinners (1873)
"The Trail To Mexico" is contained in John A. Lomax's Cowboy Songs and other Frontier Ballads (1910)
The song was also published in Carl Sandburg's American Songbag (1927)
First recorded by Carl T. Sprague.
(c) Carl T. Sprague (1926) (as "Following the Cow Trail")
Recorded August 5, 1925 in Camden NJ
Released August 1926 on Victor 20067
Listen here:
(c) Harry "Mac" McClintock (1928) (as "The Trail To Mexico")
Recorded March 23, 1928 in Oakland, CA
Released on Victor V-40016
Listen here:
(c) Jules Allen (1929) (as "The Cow Trail To Mexico")
Recorded March 28, 1929 in Hollywood, CA
Released on Victor 23757
Listen to a sample here: Let 'er buck! : 25 authentic cowboy songs
(c) Len Nash and his Country Boys (1929) (as "The Trail To Mexico")
Recorded July 19, 1929 in Los Angeles, CA
Released on Brunswick 354
Listen here:
Besides "Buffalo Skinners", Woody Guthrie also recorded the "The Trail to Mexico" variation.
(c) Woody Guthrie (1941) (as "The Trail to Mexico")
Recorded January 4, 1941 in Washingtonb, DC
Recording engineers Alan Lomax and John Langenegger.
Listen to a fragment here: American Radical Patriot - Woody Guthrie
(c) Cass County Boys (1941) (as "The Trail To Mexico")
Recorded April 3, 1941 in Dallas, Texas
Released on Bluebird B-8806
(c) Pete Seeger (1954) (as "The Trail To Mexico")
Released in 1954 on the album Frontier Ballads
Listen here:
(c) Joan O'Bryant (1958) (as "The Trail To Mexico")
Listen here:
(c) Johnny Cash (1964) (as "New Mexico")
Recorded around 1955 and overdubbed on April 21, 1964
Released on the album The Original Sun Sound of Johnny Cash
(c) Roscoe Holcomb (1962) (as "The Hills Of Mexico")
Recorded in 1961 in New York City
Released on the album "The Music of Roscoe Holcomb and Wade Ward
Lyrics
When I was in Old Ford Worth in eighteen ninety three
Some old Mexican cowboy come stepping up to me,
Saying I'll hire you, young fellow, how would you like to go
To spend another season with me in Mexico
Lord, I had no employment and back to him did say
Tis according to you wages, according to your pay.
I will pay to you good wages, also to go home
If you spend another season with me in Mexico
Well, they sent along that old steamboat and back to home did go
How the bells they did ring and the whistles they did blow
How the bells they did ring and the whistles they did blow
In that God forsaken Fort Worth in the hills of Mexico.
Listen here:
(c) Peter LaFarge (1963) (as "The Trail to Mexico")
Listen here:
(c) Don McLean (2003) (as "The Trail to Mexico")
Recorded August 23, 1978 in Brentwood, TN
Released in 2004 on the next album:
Listen here:
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