I ain't iggnoorin' just cain't remember although I think I've heard before. Anyway could this song be 'bout Old Top and Curley Cole in a previous life?
Tying Knots In the Devil's Tail
Away up high in the Sierra Peaks,
Where the yellow pines stand tall,
Ol' Sandy Bob and Buster Jig
Had a rodeer camp last fall.
Oh, they taken their horses and running irons,
And maybe a dawg or two,
And they 'lowed they'd brand all the long eared calves,
That come within their view.
And any old long eared dogie that flapped long ears,
And didn't brush up by day,
Got his long ears whittled and his old hid scortched,
In a most artistic way.
Now one fine day old Sandy Bob,
He throwed his soogun down,
"I'm sick of the smell of burnin' hair,
And I 'lows I'm a-going to town."
So they saddled up and hits a lope,
For it weren't no site of a ride,
And them was the days a Buckeroo
Could oil up his inside.
Oh, they starts her in at the Kentucky Bar,
At the head of Whisky Row,
And they winds up down by the Depot House,
Some forty drinks below.
They then sets up and turns around,
And goes her the other way,
And to tell you the Gawd-forsaken truth,
Them boys got stewed that day.
As they was a ridin' back to camp,
A packin' a pretty good load,
Who should they meet but the Devil himself,
A-prancin' down the road.
Says he, "You ornery cowboy skunks,
You'd better hunt your holes,
For I've come up from Hell's Rim Rock,
To gather in your souls."
Says Sandy Bob, "Old Devil be durned,
We boys is kinda tight,
But you aint a-goin' to gather no cowboy souls,
'Thout you has some kind of a fight."
So Sand Bob punched a hole in his rope,
And he swang her straight and true,
He lapped it on to the Devil's horns,
And he taken his dallies too.
Now Buster Jig was a riata man,
With his gut line coiled up neat,
So he shaken her out an' he built him a loop,
And he lassoed the Devil's hind feet.
Oh, they stretched him out an' they tailed him down,
While the irons was a gettin' hot,
They cropped and swallow forked his ears,
Then they branded him up a lot.
They pruned him up with a de-hornin' saw
And they knotted his tail for a joke,
They then rode off and left him there,
Necked to a Black-Jack oak.
If you're ever up high in the Sierra Peaks,
And you hear one hell of a wail,
You'll know its the Devil a-bellerin' around,
About them knots in his tail.
I like Micheal Martin Murphey's verion where he uses the hammer dulcimer and other very tradtional instroooments on the track.