Take Me Back to Tulsa

"Take Me Back to Tulsa" is a Western swing standard song. Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan added words and music to the melody of the traditional fiddle tune "Walkin' Georgia Rose" in 1940.[3] The song is one of eight country music performances selected for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock & Roll".[4]

"Take Me Back to Tulsa"
Single by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
B-side"New Worried Mind"
ReleasedMarch 1941
RecordedFebruary 26, 1941[1]
StudioWBAP Studio, Blackstone Hotel, Fort Worth, Texas[2]
GenreWestern swing
LabelOkeh 06101
Songwriter(s)Bob Wills, Tommy Duncan
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys singles chronology
"Big Beaver"
(1940)		 "Take Me Back to Tulsa"
(1941)		 "Maiden's Prayer"
(1941)

Song

"Take me Back to Tulsa" features one of Western Swing's greatest bands in full flight.[4] It originated as a Bob Wills fiddle tune and was so popular at shows that Wills and singer Tommy Duncan added words and recorded it in early 1941.[4]

Musically, the song has been described as a "jubilant Western Swing romp",[4] with Wills urging fiddler Louis Tireney to "turn it on boy, turn it on" half way through the song.

Wills's organization was based in Tulsa from 1934 to 1942, and the song takes its name from the chorus: "Take me back to Tulsa, I'm too young to marry".

Lyrically, the song is a series of unrelated, mostly nonsense, rhyming couplets. One was:

Little bee sucks the blossom, big bee gets the honey.
Darkie raise the cotton, white man gets the money.

The last quoted line was changed by 1946 by Wills to: "Little man raise the cotton, beer joints get the money."[5] (Modern covers of the song have tended to use the line: "Poor boy picks the cotton, Rich man gets the money").

When Wills was asked about the lines, he said they were just nonsense lyrics that he learned as a youth.[6] Though Wills did not know its origin, the couplet actually derives from a 19th century song of enslaved African Americans, a version of which also appeared in print in the 1880 novel My Southern Home by William Wells Brown.[7]

When played at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa and other venues, it often included the lines:

Would I like to go to Tulsa? Boy I sure would.
Well, let me off at Archer, and I'll walk down to Greenwood.

Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys recorded "Take Me Back to Tulsa" on February 26, 1941 at the Blackstone Hotel, Fort Worth, Texas[8] (OKeh 6101) and it became one of their larger hits. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys previously performed the song in his 1940 movie Take Me Back to Oklahoma. Spade Cooley's Western Dance Gang also performed it in their 1944 short movie titled for the song, Take Me Back to Tulsa.

The song has been recorded by many other artists over the years.

Errata

Al Dexter is sometimes erroneously credited with writing "Take Me Back to Tulsa", perhaps due to his musically similar hit song "Pistol Packin' Mama".[9][10]

Covers

Merle Haggard recorded a cover of the song for his 1970 album A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (or, My Salute to Bob Wills).

The country music group Asleep at the Wheel covered the song on their 1973 album Comin' Right at Ya.

George Strait did a cover of the song on his 2003 live album For the Last Time: Live from the Astrodome.

Red dirt band Cross Canadian Ragweed performed a backstage cover of the song, released on their 2006 live album Back to Tulsa – Live and Loud at Cain's Ballroom.

References
  1. 78 Record: Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys – Take Me Back To Tulsa (1941), retrieved 2021-07-20
  2. Russell, Tony (2004). Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921–1942. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 965. ISBN 0195139895.
  3. Phillips, Stacy (1997). Western Swing Fiddle. New York: Oak Publications. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-78323-470-7.
  4. Sullivan, Steve, Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, vol. 3 & 4, (Rowman & Littlefield 2017)
  5. Bob Wills, Tiffany Transcriptions, vol. 2
  6. Peterson, "Class Unconsciousness in Country Music", p. 54: "Years later Bob Wills said these were just 'nonsense lyrics that went with the tune,' one of many he learned as a youth when he absorbed every bit of blues and jazz from blacks that he could."
  7. Knight, Frederick C. (2012-08-22). Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo-American World, 1650–1850. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-6369-8.
  8. Russell, Tony (2004). Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921–1942. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 965. ISBN 0195139895.
  9. Carlin, Country Music, p. 103: "Besides "[Pistol Packin'] Mama,' [Al] Dexter wrote the words to Bob Wills's theme song, 'Take Me Back to Tulsa,' the ever-popular 'Rosalita,' the barroom weeper 'Too Blue to Cry,' and the upbeat cowboy number 'so Long, Pal'."
  10. Coleman, Playback, p. 48: "He [Al Dexter] freely admitted to borrowing from western swing icon Bob Wills; in fact, 'Pistol Packin' Mama' bears a close, almost fraternal resemblance to Wills's 'Take Me Back to Tulsa'."

Bibliography
  • Carlin, Richard. Country Music: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-93802-3
  • Coleman, Mark. Playback: From The Victrola To Mp3, 100 Years Of Music, Machines, And Money. Da Capo Press, 2004. ISBN 0-306-80984-2
  • Peterson, Richard A. "Class Unconsciousness in Country Music". You Wrote My Life: Lyrical Themes in Country Music pp. 35–62, edited by Melton A. McLaurin and Richard A. Peterson. Routledge, 1992. ISBN 2-88124-554-4
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