The Streets of Laredo: Texas Modernity and Its Discontents

Arguing that the well-known cowboy ballad "The Streets of Laredo" is an early expression of "discontent with an encroaching modernity," author Jos E. Lim n draws upon ethnomusicology, folklore, history, contemporary literature, and other sources to provide a deeply contextualized analysis of the song. He explores its place in the imaginative construction of the American West and its role in the interpretation of both Anglo-American and Mexican American identity in the Texas borderlands and beyond.

With the ballad as his point of departure, Lim n takes readers on a tour that includes formative experiences from his childhood in Laredo and Corpus Christi; examination of the works of Am rico Paredes, Larry McMurtry, and others; and considerations of American popular music, cinema, baseball, and associated socio-cultural phenomena. The result is a complex and intriguing view of Texas and American culture as seen through the lens of a "simple" cowboy song.

"It is my hope," Lim n writes in his introduction, "that this account of these central figures in Texas history--the ordinary cowboy and this ballad--will prove useful as Texas deals with the current and deeply conflicted phase in its long struggle with modernity." The Streets of Laredo: Texas Modernity and Its Discontents offers readers important new perspectives on how society struggles with, understands, and comes to terms--or fails to come to terms--with the inevitable changes wrought by an evolving culture.