The Abandoned One (El Abandonado)
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 13/09/2020

Day 179 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

Sandburg writes: "The love song is by far the most common of all Mexican folksongs. During the trail driving days many of the cowboys who drove herds from Southern Texas to Kansas and beyond were Mexicans. I often asked only trail drivers if vaqueros had any such songs as the Texas cowboys had. Invariably the answer has been that vaqueros sans little else but love songs." Thus wrote Frank J. Dobie, Secretary of the Texas Folklore Society, in No.3 of the publications of that organization.

Of El Abandonado he wrote that it is one of the most popular of all Mexican songs, "is sung wherever Mexicans live," and is representative "of that large body of Mexican love songs to be heard day and night whether in camp or at fiesta.”Sandburg writes: "

NOTE: John and Alan Lomax published this in 1934, seven years after Carl Sandburg. I used the Lomax's simple music notation because the arrangement for Sandburg (by R.H.?) was extremely over the top.