BORDER AFFAIR, A

Created on 16/01/2007
Latest update on 04/07/2023

Artist: C.B. Clark
Author: Charles Badger Clark Jr.
Year: 1907

Cowboy poem (with first line: Spanish is the loving tongue) first published in Pacific Monthly and in his verse volume Sun And Saddle Leather (1915), later also in N. Howard Thorp's songbook Songs Of The Cowboys (1921). Melody (of both A Border Affair and Spanish Is The Loving Tongue) sometimes credited to Dorothy Youmans, sister of Vincent Youmans (Tea For Two). There's an Irish (drinking) song using the same melody (Nil Sé Ina Lá - There's The Day), which doesn't automatically mean it's older.

Covers:

1921:

Orville Cox [cowboy from Taos, NM]

1936:

Tex Fletcher

1941:

Texas Jim Robertson

1956:

Milt Okun & Ellen Stekert [as Spanish Is The Loving Tongue]

1957:

Glenn Yarbrough [idem]

1958:

Richard Dyer-Bennet [idem]

1962:

Mitchell Trio [as Adios Mi Corazon]

1963:

Limeliters [as Spanish Is The Loving Tongue]

1964:

Paul Clayton [idem]

1964:

Ian & Sylvia [idem]

1965:

Marianne Faithfull [idem]

1967:

Tom Paxton [idem]

1970:

Bob Dylan [idem; again in '73 and in '67 a Basement tape version with The Band]

1973:

Clannad [as Nil Sé Ina La]

1976:

Judy Collins [as Spanish Is The Loving Tongue]

1977:

Horslips [as Daybreak]

1981:

Emmylou Harris [as Spanish Is A Loving Tongue]

1992:

Blackeyed Susans

1993:

Wolfe Tones [as Ta Na La]

1998:

Jimmy Crowley [as Nil Sé Ina Lá (There's The Day)]

1998:

David Wilkie [linked Spanish Is The Loving Tongue with Nil Sé Ina Lá on cd Cowboy Ceilidh]

2000:

Cathal McConnell [as Nil Sé Ina Lá, with Richard Thompson on guitar]

2015:

Happy Traum [as Spanish Is The Loving Tongue]

Nil Sé Ina Lá as by Clannad ('73) and Nil Na La as by Solas ('96) are set to a different melody. Crossing the border to find some romance takes a double meaning in one of Dylan's versions: "she was Mex and I was white" makes him cross the color line too.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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