Cowboy Dreams (#BOTB)

        John Wayne would probably not make it in today's entertainment world.  Like so many other screen legends, Wayne has become a relic of the past.  Too bad.  We could use more heroic heroes.  

This was part of my late step-father's John Wayne memorabilia collection.
 Maybe I should have kept that collection, but selling it all on eBay
wasn't a terrible idea either.

Childhood Fantasies

         We'd play lots of made up fantasy games when I was a kid.  Cowboys and Indians was a favorite.  I don't know that many kids pretend to be cowboys and Indians these days.  It might be considered culturally insensitive, too violent,  or something like that.  If kids do play fantasy role games now, maybe they pretend to be activists or lawyers.   Hopefully kids still have fun and stretch their imaginations, but I'm happy that I grew up in the time I did.  You could literally be anyone you wanted to be in your dreams and not be shamed for doing so.  But it was also a time of better morality in many ways.

         For me, the concept of cowboys takes me back to those childhood fantasies.   Today's Battle of the Bands song uses cowboy imagery in a metaphorical way:  A man in love seeing himself as a sort of romantic cowboy hero.   America and the world still has a certain fanciful image of cowboy life so I think that makes the romantic cowboy metaphor work.  See what you think...

Battle of the Bands

     Battle of the Bands is the blogging event started by Far Away Series and now hosted by StMcC Presents Battle of the Bands.   This event happens each month on the 15th and on some blogs there is also a Battle on the 1st of the month.  My blog is one of those with a second Battle on the 1st of the month.   The premise is simple:  Listen to the songs presented below and then in the comments vote for your favorite and tell us why you liked it.  Then visit the links listed near the bottom of this post for more Battle action.


Cowboy Dreams

         This song was written by Prefab Sprout's Paddy  McAloon for the 1994 BBC television series Crocodile Shoes.    Prefab Sprout has been one of my favorite pop/rock groups since I first discovered them back in the eighties.  In my opinion Paddy McAloon is one of the best of modern era songwriters.   Please don't vote on the original, but if you want to hear how Prefab Sprout does the song then you can click this link.  They released their version in 2001.  This is a lovely version with a nice video--please don't vote for it as much as you might be tempted to do.

       The current Battle looks at two other version of the song.   See which you enjoy the most...

Jimmy Nail   "Cowboy Dreams"  (1994)

          Jimmy Nail was the star of the BBC series Crocodile Shoes.  Here is his version from that show. 
       




Nigel Livingstone  "Cowboy Dreams"  (2016)

       In my brief search I didn't find much about this artist.   He appears to be from Ireland and mostly plays in pubs and such, though he does have several YouTube videos.  Nigel kicks up the tempo on his version..





Time to Vote!

        Okay pardner, time to saddle up and vote for your favorite version of the two that I've presented here.  Which song version do you like best? You don't have to know about music to have an opinion since it all comes down to your own personal taste.

         Please vote on your favorite by letting us know your choice in the comment section and tell us why you prefer the version you chose. Then after you've finished here, please visit the other blogs listed below who may or may not be participating this time around. And if you've put up your own BOTB contest let us know that as well so we can vote on yours.


Here are some other places where you might find BOTB posts:

 StMcC Presents Battle of the Bands

  'MIKE'S RAMBLINGS'

'Curious as a Cathy'

Sound of One Hand Typing

Angel's Bark  

Debbie Doglady's Den

Jingle, Jangle, Jungle 

Cherdo on the Flipside 


Winner of this Battle Announced on Friday June 22nd

        I'll be visiting family in Florida about this time so I hope I can get these results up in a timely manner.  Then I'll be in Jersey for several days so I'll likely have limited internet time during my trip.  Please bear with me.  I'll try to make some blog rounds, but I can't guarantee much.

         Hope you have a great summer!

          Did you play cowboys and Indians when you were a kid?     Do kids today still play cowboys and Indians?  Do you think playing this fantasy game is culturally insensitive or politically incorrect or something like that?

Cowboys and Indians

Image credit

 

        Hopalong Cassidy was all the rage when I was born.  He'd been all the rage as a cowboy hero for years and smart marketing had Hoppy's licensed products all over the place.  The Hopalong Cassidy television show was on the air from the time I was an infant until I was about four or five years old.  Even then I thought he was a rather peculiar cowboy star, but adults seemed to think kids should like him so I guess we did--kind of.

        Cowboy and Indian movies had been around since the earliest days of film-making.  My father had grown up with them.  They were still quite popular in the 50s, but science fiction and war movies were starting to become more ensconced in the cinematic hearts of young American boys.  I preferred the uncertain threats suggested by the sci-fi genre, but I still loved a good Western.

          Some of my favorite toys included the plastic little men that usually came in the form of soldiers or cowboys and Indians.  The army men were always a drab green color.  They often came with nifty green colored accessories like guns, artillery, and vehicles.  For some strange reason the bags of cowboys and Indians were brightly multicolored red, yellow, blue, and other colors.  Oddly the horses were in the more natural colors of white, black, and brown.  I could never figure out why those little men had to be so colorful, but that's they way it was and we just had to accept it.

           The little figures came in assorted poses that represented cliches that met the expectations that we had developed after watching countless Western films.  The Indians always included the archer on one knee poised with an arrow in a drawn bow, the wild running brave with tomahawk in the air, the warrior with knife ready for attack, and the noble chief holding a lance.  Most of the tiny faces looked fierce and intimidating.   The cowboys' faces were stern and stoic.   They usually stood in various stances of gun readiness.  Both groups had riders that could be mounted on horseback.  It was a cast of characters that was perfect for directing my own cowboy and Indian spectacle.

          Sometimes my little men clashed in battle.  I simulated gunfire and ricocheted bullets with weird little kid mouth sounds.  Tiny bodies fell from furniture that stood in for high cliffs and buildings.  Riders tumbled from horses.  Figures fought in hand to hand combat as I deftly maneuvered the little bodies to create blows with arms that were locked into permanent poses.  My imaginary Westerns had some violence, but they often had something that most kids' play did not have--circus.

          Circus and show business were an integral part of my life when I was growing up.  If there had been toy sets that consisted of miniature jugglers, clowns, and acrobats I would have probably had those, but since there were not I had army men and cowboys and Indians.   Army men did not seem to fit well into the circus, but I could easily create my own tiny circus with a Wild West Show theme.

           My miniature show had trained horses from the Western toy sets and some other animals from a safari set that I had acquired somewhere along the way.  The circus owner and the hero of my playtime movie stories was a little man dressed in safari clothes.  His greatest distinctions were that he was made out of black plastic (I had never seen a little man made of black plastic) and he had a missing arm.  It looked almost as though the arm had been chewed off, but I had no recollection of how he lost the arm.   Then again I don't even remember where the man came from.

           There was something rugged and heroic about the little black man with the missing arm.  I imagined that he had been a famous lion tamer who had lost his arm to one of the big cats.   Even with one arm missing he was tough and commanded respect.  No one dared to go up against the lion tamer turned circus owner.  He did not see a missing arm so much as a handicap as much as a minor inconvenience.

           One of the Western sets had included a cowgirl so she became the love interest of the one armed circus owner.  There was only one cowgirl in my toy collection so she was naturally the sweetheart of the only hero.  My hero had a few sidekicks and pals, but most of the cowboys and Indians were just movie extras on the imaginary set of my imaginary Western.

           I no longer remember the stories.   They lasted from day to day over a time span now forgotten.  The men, the animals, and the set pieces have long vanished to unknown places and reside only vaguely in my memory now clouded by the passing of the decades.  Only dust lingers from the parade of circus wagons that have long disappeared over a distant horizon toward a soft sepia sunset.
         
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   Do you have any special playtime memories or toys that were especially significant to you?  Did you put stories to your playtime and did they continue from day to day?   How have the imaginary stories of your childhood play affected you to this day?


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  And now a "Theme from an Imaginary Western":