Cold gray buildings
Where a hill should be
Steel and concrete
Closin' in on me
City faces
Haunt the places
I rode alone
Cowboy
Cowboy
Can’t run
Can’t hide
It’s too late to fight now
Too tired to try
Wind that once blew free
Now scatters dust to the sky
Cowboy
Cowboy
Can’t run
Can’t hide
It’s too late to fight now
Too tired to try
I love this version- Nilsson rarely sounds this passionate- But it's the only song on the album that I think Newman did more effectively. And I don't like that Newman album as much as the couple he did after it. This is just very unsettling. Which was intentional.
Brainwasher9876: It is actually an electronic harpsichord towards the end. I like harpsichords in general - too bad they're not used as much anymore. BTW, the cover art for the album cover was done by Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean. Thanks for the comment tip!
Newman's studio version was two years old at this point. His next album was much more like NSN's production, very stripped down as opposed to the debut album's lush arrangements. I think if he record "Cowboy" around this time, he would have approached it similarly to Nilsson's version.
Also, you know Newman played the piano parts on this album, right?
Brainwasher: The other instrument is a harpsichord, a centuries old instrument that's similar to the piano, but was made nearly obsolete by the popularity of the piano. It was often used in baroque music. It played prominently in the Paul Mariat worldwide smash "Love is Blue" from the late '60s and many other great pop and even rock songs. If I'm not mistaken Mozart composed a lot of his music on the harpsichord. Love the sound of it!
