At one point in my life I was at an age when I was capable of distinguishing between what I liked and disliked concerning music, but wasn’t able to search and find things on my own. I was sure that I liked songs that told stories, and I was sure that I could get away with anything I wanted. Those were the two things I was absolutely sure of. That and the fact that dragons were real, unicorns were fake and wizards lived in my backyard. When it comes to songs that tell a story, there is no man better than Marty Robbins, and no song better than “Big Iron.”
Crooning is an ability few are capable of achieving. Elvis did it, Buck Owens did it, but Marty Robbins did it best. It takes quite a bit to gain complete attention from a growing young man, but when Robbins has a story to tell, he does it in a fashion that erases any sign of distraction and draws the listener into such complete attention it’s impossible to let your mind drift away. “Big Iron” tells the story of a stranger coming to town where the outlaw Texas Red (thought to be an insinuated Billy the Kid) is holding up. Texas Red calls him out to the street for a showdown. The time is 11:20 (forget about high noon, it’s too damn hot) when the two face each other.
The first time I remember hearing “Big Iron” was approximately 15 minutes after my first experience with looting. I’d walked out of a mom and pop shop in Estes Park with a California Raisin toy, unpaid for and unscathed. I was free. When my mother noticed me playing with it in the back seat (why I thought I’d get away with it while sitting a mere two feet away from her is still a mystery to me) she grabbed my arm and interrogated me. Suddenly, freedom was looking like a far-off place, and the only discernable future I could see myself in involved a small western town, a bottle of whiskey, and a stranger coming to town to shoot me down.
As my mother began to scold me and my father turned the car around, Robbins crooned on, “20 men had tried to take him/ 20 men had made a slip/ 21 would be the ranger/ with the big iron on his hip.”
My mind was racing so fast I wasn’t paying attention to my mother yelling. Could I become the outlaw that Robbins spoke of? Was it possible that little old me, stealing California Raisins, would someday become an Arizona ranger’s prime target? Is it possible I could kill 20 men?
In the end the ranger kills Texas Red, and his gunslinger speed is still talked about to this day. I have yet to make it out to the old west, and after returning the raisin and apologizing for my actions, I was once again returned to freedom. What the future holds at this point is still questionable, but with Texas Red out of the way and Calfornia Raisins still locked in 1992, it would be a difficult task for me to end up an outlaw in Mariposa County.