The Dude totally got them. Roy Rogers harmonized for them in their self-titled theme song by Bob Nolan. The glamorous Supremes sang about them. Jack Palance recited their theme song. The Library of Congress, in 2010, honored them with their song’s inclusion into the National Registry.
Seeeeeeeeeeeee them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground
Looooooooooonely but free I’ll be found
Drifffffffting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.Caaaaaaares of the past are behind
Nooooooowhere to go but I’ll find
Just where the trail will wind
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
Is there any better summer song? When “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” comes on, with the soft croons of the Sons of the Pioneers, I give up trying to write that chapter, proofread that layout, scrub that shower curtain. I’ll keep rolling on, like those tumbleweeds. At least until I come to the fence of my own devising: my bad-ass taskmaster self.
Reel-life tumbleweeds make the silver-screen drifter cool as cool can be. The real-deal tumbleweed is a diaspore that invokes windswept barren film locations for excellent reason: it’s at home in dry-as-dirt deserts from North America to Africa. Dead to the world, it tumbles along when dry, sprinkling seeds when wet. And cluttering up way too many yards, if you have the fences to catch them.
But reel-life is more important. Sit back, grab a brewski, and check out this mash-up-worthy video of Tumbleweed/tumbleweed. Happy summer! (Now get to work…)
My dad used to play that song in the car back in the late 80s. It will forever be linked to both that and the opening sequence of The Big Liebowski for me!
I can’t think of the song in any other way after The Big Lebowski! Brilliant use of song (and Sam Elliott)! Couldn’t find a video of it, though…
I’ve never seen so many in one shot! love the film and the song!
you can never have too many tumbleweeds (says a Brooklyner who doesn’t have to clean them off the yard)
Their music added so much to the movies back then. It fit. It belonged. And not just the Sons of the Pioneers, Gene Autry pulled it off very well and there are some great films with Bob Wills providing the tunes. Great stuff. A lot of it is popular again today, so why doesn’t it get back into some brand new western movies?
Right, those movies needed those songs, and the songs seemed to grow out the movies. Not sure if the innocence of those songs will fly today, especially in the dark, gritty westerns that are out now. Maybe the Coen Brothers will redo a singing cowboy movie? It would be nice to hear “happy Trails” again on the big screen. Thanks for dropping by, John, and good luck with your Gold Rush tales, which sound excellent.