#9 - "A Bad Half Hour" - Ballads in the Wilderness Series

#9 - "A Bad Half Hour" Ballads in the Wilderness Series - Luddites on Location White Sands National Park, New Mexico I recorded "A Bad Half Hour" a few months ago while staying with friends at their home near White Sands National Park, in the Tularosa Basin of southern New Mexico. As you can see, the rolling waves of white gypsum dunes look like snowfields in the desert. The play of light and shadow, the clouds that gather around the mountains ringing the Park, and the full moon rising behind me are over-powering in their quiet beauty. “A Bad Half Hour” takes its name from the cowboy poem from which this song is derived. I've set the words to the melody of the Scottish song, "Annie Laurie", an old-time sentimental favorite that's referred to in the poem. Charles Badger Clark (1883-1957) was the real deal, a young cowboy who worked on the Arizona range. He sent his writings home to his family in South Dakota, and in 1907. his mother quietly submitted a poem to Pacific Monthly Magazine, who promptly published it and mailed Clark a check for $10. He turned his hand more seriously to poetry after that, and ultimately became the first Poet Laureate of South Dakota. It's said that he jokingly referred to himself as the "Poet Lariat". "A Bad Half Hour" offers us an honest look into the aching heart of a young cowboy. Laying in his bedroll one night, he recalls his lost love as his comrade, Warblin' Jim, rides night guard around the resting cattle. To calm and settle the herd, Jim quietly croons "Annie Laurie", unaware that the hearing the song has reawakened in his friend long-buried feelings of sorrow and regret. Thank you, Charles Badger Clark, for the poems that have moved and inspired us for over 100 years. (I feel that we also owe a debt of gratitude to his mother!) Thank you, Clayton Stubbs, for your glorious editing and post-production magic. And my thanks to all of you for watching.