"Streets of Laredo" (Laws B01, Roud 23650), also known as "The Dying Cowboy", is a famous American cowboy ballad in which a dying ranger (1911/ Rhymes of the range and trail) tells his story to another cowboy. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Derived from the traditional folk song "The Unfortunate Rake", the song has become a folk music standard, and as such has been performed, recorded and adapted numerous times, with many variations. The title refers to the city of Laredo, Texas. The old-time cowboy Frank H. Maynard (1853–1926) of Colorado Springs, Colorado, claimed authorship of his self published song in 1911 "The Dying Cowboy". Cowboys up and down the trail revised The Cowboy's Lament, and in his memoir, Maynard alleged that cowboys from Texas changed the title to "The Streets of Laredo" after he claimed authorship of the song in a 1924 interview with journalism professor Elmo Scott Watson, then on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Lyrics As I walked out in the streets of Laredo As I walked out in Laredo one day, I spied a poor cowboy, all wrapped in white linen All wrapped in white linen and cold as the clay. "I see by your outfit, that you are a cowboy." These words he did say as I slowly passed by. "Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story, For I'm shot in the chest, and today I must die." "'Oh once in the saddle I used to go dashing, 'Oh once in the saddle I used to go gay. First down to Rosie's, and then to the card-house, Got shot through the body, and now here I lay." "Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly, And play the dead march as you carry me along; Take me to the green valley, there lay the sod o'er me, For I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong." "Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin, Get six pretty maidens to bear up my pall. Put bunches of roses all over my coffin, Roses to deaden the clods as they fall." "Then swing your rope slowly and rattle your spurs lowly, And give a wild whoop as you carry me along; And in the grave throw me and roll the sod