Historical Folk Lyrics
"The Educated Feller (Zebra Dun)"

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We'd camped out on the plains at the head of the Cimarron,
When along had come a stranger to stop and argue some.
He looked so very foolish we began to look around,
We thought he was a greenhorn that just escaped from town.

We asked if he'd had his breakfast, he hadn't had a smear,
So we opened up the chuck box and bade him take a share;
He took a cup of coffee, some biscuits, and some beans,
And then began to talk about some foreign kings and queens;

About the Spanish wars and fightings on the seas
With guns as big as steers and ramrods big as trees;
About old Paul Jones, the meanest son-of-a-gun,
'Twas the grittiest cuss that, Lordy, had ever pulled a gun.

When the dude had finished eatin' and had put his plate away
He rolled a cigarette, then asked the time of day;
He talked about the weather, the election, and such things,
But didn't seem to know so much 'bout working on the range.

Such an educated fellow, his talk just came in herds,
He 'stonished all them cowboys with them jaw-breakin' words;
He just kept on a-talking till he made the boys all sick
And they began to look around to play some kind of a trick.

Well, he said he'd lost his job upon the Santa Fe,
A-going across the plains to meet the Seven B.
He didn't say how come it, it was trouble with the boss,
But he would like to borrow a fat, nice saddle hoss.

Well, this tickled all the boys to death, they laughed way down their sleeves,
"Well, you can have a saddle horse as fat and nice as you please."
So Shorty grabbed a lariat and he roped the Zebra Dun,
And he turned him to the stranger while we waited for the fun.

Well, old Dun he was an outlaw that'd grown so very wild
He could paw the white right from the moon for every jump a mile.
But he stood right still as if he didn't know
Until he was all saddled and all ready for the go.

When the stranger hit the saddle Old Dunny quit the earth,
A-headed right straight up for all that he was worth,
A-pitchin' and a-squealin' and a-havin' wall-eyed fits,
With his hind feet perpendicular and his front ones in the bits.

Well, you could see the tops of the mountains under Dunny every jump,
But the stranger stayed upon him just like a camel's hump;
The stranger stayed upon him and he curled his black mustache
Just like a summer boarder a-waiting for his hash.

Lord, he thumped him in the shoulders and he spurred him when he whirled,
He showed us flunky punchers that he was the wolf of this world;
And when he once more dismounted then again upon the ground
We knew he was a thoroughbred and not a gent from town.

The boss, who'd been a-standing round and watching all the show,
Walked right up to the stranger; he said, "You needn't go;
If you can handle a lariat like you rode old Zebra Dun
Well, you're the man I've looked for ever since the year of one."

Now he could handle a rope, boys, and didn't do it slow,
And when the cows stampeded he was always on the go--
There's one thing and a sure thing I've learned since I've been born:
Every educated feller ain't a plumb greenhorn.
This song is from the album "Cowboy And Western Songs".