Tangled Tunes—Oh, My Darling, Clementine

So the song Oh, My Darling, Clementine is about a miner who’s daughter drowns, and he sings about the tragedy. It’s a pretty morbid tale.

In a cavern, In a canyon,
Excavating for a mine,
Dwelt a miner forty-niner,
And his daughter Clementine.

Oh my darling, Oh my darling,
Oh my darling Clementine,
You are lost and gone forever,
Dreadful sorry Clementine.

Now I wanted to have a more playful twist on this song, so I thought, what if it was a cowboy who was looking for his cow? Throughout the story, the cowboy rides across the plains searching for his long-lost cow, and the cow will be hiding somewhere within the illustrations: behind a cactus or riding on a train.

In a pasture, in a prairie,
walking down a railroad line,
lived a cowboy with a big hat
and his cow named Clementine.

Oh, my darling, oh, my darling,
oh, my darling, Clementine,
you are lost and gone forever.
I’m so sorry, Clementine.

To find out how the cowboy and his cow became estranged, you’ll just have to check out the song at Cantata Learning when it’s published—all songs will be available to listen to on their website.