Cowboy song lyric question

Factual Questions
1

I ride an old paint, I lead an old dan
I’m goin’ to Montana to throw the hoolihan.

  1. What is the “hoolihan”?

  2. What’s a dan? Slang/mispronounciation of “Dun”?

2

What song is this? I listen to a lot of Country music and this does not look right. If I knew the artist/song title I might be able to help. Don’t forget to take into account any accents the singer may have.

3

Hoolihan is a roping style. Click here for more info.

I looked up dan here. I guess I would go with “(Mining) A small truck or sledge used in coal mines” as most likley to mesh with this context.

4

For some reason it’s in my head that “Dan” is slang for a male mule. I don’t have a cite, though.

5

Hey! I resent that! :smiley:

6

It’s a cowboy traditional, not a C&W song:
http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/paint.html

7

My understanding is that the “dan” is a pack mule and that “throw the houlihan” means take part in a rodeo (a roping event, obviously). So the guy’s traveling to a rodeo on a horse, trailing a pack mule.

I have zero citation for this, but that’s always been my understanding of the song.

I don’t think a “dan” is a wagon or sleigh, because the song refers to “watering them,” meaning the animals (plural).

8

while on this subject (I recently bought CD of cowboy songs), does anyone know of a painting based on the song “Ghost Riders in the Sky” ?

A’plowing through the ragged sky/ and up a cloudy draw…

9

I don’t think a hoolihan would be used in rodeo, it’s a technique for roping a horse without spooking it, not very showy. More likely he would have been leaving to find work as a horse wrangler. Some versions of the song say “I lead Old Dan”, which would have been the name of his pack animal.

10

DAMN! I love my Lighter!

My Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Edited by J. E. Lighter., Vol II, that is.

The song first appears in print in the US 1910 in a collection of American Ballads. The next appearance of the word is as a verb and meaning to bulldog a steer without twisting his neck. The next is as a verb, 1933, saying that the practice has been banned at all good rodeos. Then, 1936, some guy saying that it was the old-time(!) practice of bull-dogging. (The ! was mine).

In 1944 we learn that throw the houlihan means, among cowboys, to paint the town red. The usage as a backhand thrown loop for roping horses doesn’t appear in print until 1985.

Lighter gives no usage of Dan to mean anything concering an animal.

I may post more help as I find it.

11

While we’re at it, what’s a Zebra Dun, and what’s a Strawberry Roan?

12

And let’s not forget…“Ride around, little dogies, ride around them slow,
For the fiery and snuffy are a-rarin’ to go”