Sheet Music for Alto Saxophone Solo
‘Oh Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie’ is one of the most famous cowboy songs. Originating in the 19th century as a sea song, the cowboy version was first published in 1910 in John Lomax’s ‘Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads.’ It has been recorded by a number of artists, including Carl T. Sprague, Johnny Cash, Burl Ives, Bruce Molsky, Tex Ritter, The Residents and Johnnie Ray, as well as being used in film, television and in video games.
Backing track:
LYRICS:
1. Oh bury me not on the lone prairie.
These words came low and mournfully.
From the pallid lips of the youth who lay
on his dying bed at the close of day.
2. He had wasted and pined ’til o’er his brow
Death’s shades were slowly gathering now
He thought of home and loved ones nigh,
As the cowboys gathered to see him die.
3. “O bury me not on the lone prairie
Where coyotes howl and the wind blows free
In a narrow grave just six by three—
O bury me not on the lone prairie”
4. “It matters not, I’ve been told,
Where the body lies when the heart grows cold
Yet grant, o grant, this wish to me
O bury me not on the lone prairie.”
5. “I’ve always wished to be laid when I died
In a little churchyard on the green hillside
By my father’s grave, there let me be,
O bury me not on the lone prairie.”
6. “I wish to lie where a mother’s prayer
And a sister’s tear will mingle there.
Where friends can come and weep o’er me.
O bury me not on the lone prairie.”
7. “For there’s another whose tears will shed.
For the one who lies in a prairie bed.
It breaks me heart to think of her now,
She has curled these locks, she has kissed this brow.”
8. “O bury me not…” And his voice failed there.
But they took no heed to his dying prayer.
In a narrow grave, just six by three
They buried him there on the lone prairie.
9. And the cowboys now as they roam the plain,
For they marked the spot where his bones were lain,
Fling a handful o’ roses o’er his grave
With a prayer to God his soul to save
