Spanish Johnny

Mandolin player with a dark past from a 1912 poem by Willa Cather of the same title. Cather uses him as a secondary character in her 1915 novel The Song of the Lark, about Thea Kronborg.

The David Bromberg song "Spanish Johnny," off his 1978 album My Own House.

Bromberg learned the song from singer/songwriter Paul Siebel, who never recorded it. He got it from the book [American Ballads and Folk Songs] (1934) by American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, who recorded a version by C. E. Scoggins in 1934.

Poem

The old West, the old time,
The old wind singing through
The red, red grass a thousand miles —
And Spanish Johnny, you!
He'd sit beside the water ditch
When all his herd was in,
And never mind a child, but sing
To his mandolin.

The big stars, the blue night,
The moon-enchanted lane;
The olive man who never spoke,
But sang the songs of Spain.
His speech with men was wicked talk —
To hear it was a sin;
But those were golden things he said
To his mandolin.

The gold songs, the gold stars,
The world so golden then;
And the hand so tender to a child —
Had killed so many men.
He died a hard death long ago
Before the Road came in —
The night before he swung, he sang
To his mandolin.

David Bromberg version lyrics

Those other years, those dusty years
When we drove the big hearse through
I tried to forget the miles we rode
and Spanish Johnny, you!
He'd sit beside a water ditch
When all his herd was in
He'd never harm a child
But sing to his mandolin
He sang the old songs, the old talk
And the dealin' of our games
Spanish Johnny seldom spoke
But sang songs of Spain

External Links

• https://www.originals.be/en/originals/17520
• https://cather.unl.edu/writings/letters/let2716