Telling a story with a song: ‘Number 37’ by James Keelaghan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number 37 is the third song on James Keelaghan’s 1999 album Road. It tells a story about natural horsemanship (like that in the 1998 film The Horse Whisperer). The insert on my CD says it was inspired by seeing a barrel racer one afternoon in June at the Elizabeth, Colorado Stampede. You can watch a four-minute YouTube video with it as the soundtrack. The lyrics say:

 

“She didn’t use a riding crop, she barely used her spurs,

She was hands and knees and she was gentle loving words…

 

And one thing that I learned that day, you can whip and you can curse

But you’ll get as good a ride if you use gentle loving words”

 

The barrel racing image by Montanabw is from Wikimedia Commons.