Live 08 Dec 1995 version
[Spoken intro:] This next series of songs, they're all set on the California Mexico border. And uh, I was, I took up a road trip about just two years ago now. And uh, we went out through uh, over the San Diego mountains and down through this low desert in southern California and out back to Arizona. And I was in this little, this little tiny motel in this little desert, Four Corners desert town where there's like a bar and a grocery store and... and it was uh, it was a pleasure. You kinda park your bikes outside, and we'd sit out in front of the ??? at night, and a real warn ??? desert ??? heat. And it was me and some friends of mine, we'd sit down and play, play cards a little bit, and drink a little bit. And these, these two Mexican men came in from the west for having figured out the food trade and they took the ???. One was kind of a young fellow. He was, he was kinda high, and his, the other fellow was kinda about my age, I guess. He started looking at the bikes and uh, he told me that he had a brother who died recently in a motorcycle accident in southern California. He, he rode with his motorcycle ???. And, there was something, we talked for I guess about an hour or so. And there was something in the way that he talked about his, his, his younger brother that stayed in my head for a year, a year and a half. I was working on a song that was basically about the drug trade in southern California, Mexican drug gangs come up and they hire these migrant workers to cook up methamphetamine, very dangerous job, and those were the guys that end up getting busted by the DEA or, or uh, or worse get killed. And uh, I kept thinking back to this fella's voice, in the way that he talked about his brother. I guess the first, the first one in a family seems to be to protect, to, to take care, to take care of. And all that he ??? is get scared ??? grab hold of your leg, and, and... There's something that, that, that never leaves you, I don't think. And I guess this is a song about two brothers come up from Mexico. It happens when, one of the things it happens when that breaks down, when he get left with the circumstances, the trades we make, and the things that we end up being forced to take with us. It's called "Sinaloa Cowboys".
Well Miguel came from a small town in northern Mexico
He came north with his brother Louis to California three years ago
Well they crossed at the river levee when Louis was just sixteen
And found work together in the fields of the San Joaquin
Well they left their homes and their families, their father said, "My sons one thing you will learn
For everything that the north gives, it exacts a price in return"
Well they worked side by side in the orchards from morning till the day was through
Doing the work the hueros wouldn't do
Word was out some men in from Sinaloa were looking for some hands
Well deep in Fresno County there was a deserted chicken ranch
And there in a small tin shack on the edge of a ravine
Miguel and Louis stood cooking methamphetamine
Well you could spend a year in the orchards or make half as much in one ten-hour shift
Working for the men from Sinaloa, ah, but if you slipped
The hydriodic acid will burn right through your skin
And they'll leave you coughing up blood in the desert if you breath those fumes in
Well it was early one winter evening as Miguel stood watch outside
When the shack exploded, lighting up the valley night
Miguel carried Louis's body over his shoulder down a swale to the creek side
And there in the tall grass Louis Rosales died
Miguel lifted Louis's body into his truck and then he drove
To where the morning sunlight fell on a eucalyptus grove
There in the dirt he dug up ten thousand dollars, all that they'd saved
Kissed his brother's lips and placed him in his grave
The above lyrics are for the live 08 Dec 1995 performance of SINALOA COWBOYS at Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA, during The Ghost Of Tom Joad Solo Acoustic Tour. The song was played solo on acoustic guitar and harmonica.
A selection of four studio tracks from The Ghost Of Tom Joad album (see track list below) intercepted with interview segments with journalist Bob Costas were originally broadcast on the 21 Nov 1995 edition of the syndicated Columbia Records Radio Hour radio show which aired on U.S. album oriented rock stations. Costas conducted the interview with Bruce Springsteen that same day (21 Nov 1995) either prior to or following Springsteen's public warm-up show at the State Theater in New Brunswick, NJ. A total of 35 minutes of the 90-minute interview were used in the radio show.
Additionally, three songs from Springsteen's 08 Dec 1995 show and seven from his 09 Dec 1995 show at Upper Darby's Tower Theater (see track list below) were broadcast on the 14 Dec 1995 edition of the Columbia Records Radio Hour radio show.
The complete Columbia Records Radio Hour show was officially issued in December 1995 on cassette and reel-to-reel tapes for promotional use in the United States. Six of the ten live tracks from part 2 of the radio show (the 14 Dec 1995 broadcast) were never made available in commercial form.
Side A:
Side B:
Notes:
Part 2 of the Columbia Records Radio Hour radio show (the 14 Dec 1995 broadcast) was commercially released in Europe. Since 2005 some enterprising record labels in Europe (mostly in the UK) have been releasing Bruce Springsteen radio and TV broadcasts (and some soundboard recordings) from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Though these releases are not authorized by Bruce Springsteen or his record company, they are lawful due to a legal loophole in Europe.
The live 08 Dec 1995 version of SINALOA COWBOYS was included on some issues of The Ghost Of Tom Joad EP in Europe in 1995 and in Japan 1996. It was also included on some issues of the Secret Garden EP in 1997 which was released to promote the Jerry Maguire movie soundtrack.
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List of available versions of SINALOA COWBOYS on this website:
SINALOA COWBOYS [Album version]
