When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings is not a hymn.
It’s a song that featured in the Coen Brothers’ Netflix movie The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs.
In the movie it is a duet sung by the titular character and someone he encounters.
Don’t base your theology of the afterlife on these lyrics, but it does make a salient point about the experience of life on this earth.
Here’s the original from the movie with singalong lyrics.
But if you watch this it’s a massive, massive spoiler.
You’ve been warned.
The lyrics:
Let me tell you buddy there’s a faster gun
Coming over yonder when tomorrow comes
Let me tell you buddy and it won’t be long
Till you find yourself singing your last cowboy song
Yippie ki yi yay when the roundup ends
Yippie ki yi yay and the campfire dims
Yippie ki yi yay he shouts and he sings
When a cowboy trades his spurs for wings
When they wrap my body in the bindling sheet
And they take my six irons and pull the boots from my feet
Unsaddle my pony she’ll be itchin’ to roam
I’ll be half way to heaven under horse power of my own
Yippie ki yi yay when the round up ends
Yippie ki yi yay and the campfire dims
Yippie ki yi yay he shouts and he sings
When a cowboy trades his spurs for wings
Yippie ki yi yay I’m glory bound
No more jingle jangle I’ll lay my guns down
Yippie ki yi yay he shouts and he sings
When a cowboy trades his spurs for wings
When a cowboy trades his spurs for wings
Words and Music by Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
