I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart
by
Patsy Montana

"This song was written in 1934 while I was on a tour with Gene Autry on a show called 'The WLS Round-Up' out of Chicago, Illinois. My first song on the WLS barndance was 'Texas Plains.' I had changed the name of 'Texas' to 'Montana,' as it was a show about different states. This set my pattern and style with the vast WLS audience. After singing the song so many times in all my appearances, I became tired of it. On the round-up show was an act called Mac and Bob. I fell in love with their manager, Paul E. Rose, whom I later married, and am still married to him. He was away from the show for several days and I was a love-sick lonely 'cowgirl.' During a show somewhere in Illinois in my dressing room, I wrote this song. The title was first suggested by Joe Franks, who is now in the Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. I patterned the song after 'Texas Plains.' I introduced the song on the barn dance and it became an instant hit. It was recorded in New York, April 1935, and I became the first country and western girl singer to sell a million records." — Patsy Montana

I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart
I want to be a cowboy's sweetheart
I want to learn to rope and to ride
I want to ride o're the plains and the dessert
Out west of the great divide
I want to hear the coyotes howling
As the sun sinks in the west
I want to be a cowboy's sweetheart
That's the life I love best.

I want to ride Old Paint a-goin' at a run
I want to feel the wind in my face
A thousand miles from all this city life
Goin' a cowhand's pace
I want to pillow my head near the sleeping herd
While the moon shines down from above
I want to play my guitar and yodel
Oh, that's the life that I love.