Zebra Dun Explained

Zebra Dun
Written:	1890
Published:	1908
Genre:	Western ballad

"Zebra Dun" is a traditional American cowboy song from at least as early as 1890. Jack Thorp said he collected it from Randolph Reynolds at Carrizzozo Flats in that year.^[1] The song tells of a stranger who came upon a cowboy camp at the head of the Cimarron River. When he asks to borrow a "fat saddle horse", the cowboys fix him up:

Thorp published the song under the title "Educated Feller" in 1908.^[2] Two years later, John Lomax published a substantially longer version as "Zebra Dun" in Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads.^[3] "Zebra Dun" was one of the most popular songs among the cowboys and is included in many song books. In 1928, Jules Verne Allen was the first to record it.^[4]

Bibliography

• Lomax, John A., M.A. Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. The MacMillan Company, 1918. Online edition (pdf)
• Russell, Tony. Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921-1942. Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Thorp, N. Howard "Jack". Songs of the Cowboys. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908, 1921.

Notes and References

1. Thorp, N. Howard (1921). Songs of the Cowboys, New York: Houghton Mifflin, p. 171.
2. Thorp, N. Howard (1908). Songs of the Cowboys, Estancia, New Mexico: News Print Shop, p.27.
3. Book: Lomax . John A. . Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . New York . Sturgis & Walton . 1910 . 154 .
4. Russell, Country Music Records, p.55.

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