Song 221: Following last week's song by my friend Jeff Larson, this week's playlist track is one that he turned me on to, and which I quickly grew to love -- Rose of Cimarron by Poco, written by Rusty Young. I knew and liked a few Poco tunes, but I didn't know their music as well as Jeff did, and he played this title track to their 1976 album after telling me he thought I'd really like it. I think he might have played most, if not all, of the rest of the LP, but this opening track just amazed me. I heard at least enough of the rest of the album to know I wanted to add it to my collection, but I liked this particular song so much that I might have even bought the record just to have a copy of this Rose for my own. I always enjoy the way the song moves from the first sort-of-normal part into the extended instrumental coda that ends the piece, and I feel that the track perfectly expresses the feeling of traveling through the American desert. I admit, though, that until researching this song today, I didn't know that the Rose of Cimarron was actually a real person -- apparently she was a woman who, during a shootout at the Oklahoma Territory town of Ingles in 1893 between U.S. Deputy Marshals and the Bill Doolin Gang, gave the outlaws some help that ended up being the key to their escape from the lawmen. She did this because her lover was a member of the outlaw gang. Rusty Young read about the Rose while on tour in Oklahoma with Poco, and turned the story into a song, but you don't need to know that story to enjoy the track, though it can add some deeper meaning to the lyric to know about the real Rose of Cimarron.
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