{"id":18274,"date":"2026-02-12T06:01:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T05:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roglacup.com\/klaus62\/?p=18274"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:01:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T05:01:46","slug":"morning-song-paula-cole-where-have-all-the-cowboys-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roglacup.com\/klaus62\/2026\/02\/12\/morning-song-paula-cole-where-have-all-the-cowboys-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning song #Paula Cole #Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Twenty-five years ago, singer-songwriter Paula Cole released her sophomore album and major-label debut,\u00a0This Fire<\/em>, which spawned the perennial future\u00a0Dawson\u2019s Creek<\/em>\u00a0anthem \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Wait\u201d and the top 10 hit \u201cWhere Have All the Cowboys Gone?\u201d The latter was Cole\u2019s breakthrough single and was nominated for Record and Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 1998 Grammys, but not everyone appreciated its irony or subtext. Cole, a staunch feminist, intended the moody tune \u2014 about a disillusioned, barefoot-and-pregnant housewife and her no-good cowboy husband \u2014 to be a social commentary on traditional gender stereotypes. But that message was lost on many listeners (including conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh!), who mistook it to be about a woman literally yearning for a macho Marlboro Man-type hero to come rescue her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cole explains that she was listening to a lot of British new wave band XTC at the time of the song\u2019s creation. \u201cTheir writing is so funny and smart and clever, and I thought to myself, \u2018I want to write something clever and turn it on its head.\u2019 There’s irony woven in, there’s melancholia woven in, but from a woman’s point of view. So, it really was like a gender-role wink-wink- nudge-nudge kind of laugh, kind of an examination of our society with some sadness, and with a little bit of a country song in there too. \u2026 And then you blend it all together and there’s this conversation and there’s this learning \u2014 and confusion<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cole notes that \u201call the feminists got it\u201d then and now (she\u2019s very proud that indie-rock sister trio HAIM covered \u201cWhere Have All the Cowboys Gone?\u201d in 2019), and that the song\u2019s nuances were always better grasped by international audiences. \u201cAnother observation is that America has the fundamentalist, puritanical approach to things, but when I went to Europe, they so got it,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI remember in Spain especially, they loved the irony and the laughter \u2014 like, the \u2018shiny gun\u2019 is a phallic reference, totally tongue-in-cheek. Whereas this \u2018shiny gun,\u2019 America didn’t get that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

POsted from: https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/paula-cole-recalls-how-her-biggest-90-s-hit-was-misunderstood-it-was-horrific-184814249.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHiLrx1ncecV1zQgTcygNnUoXxU4uop1zKoYiR4l3AlFj282CgdPog2UJNl4hIwz9-7b3589VifaymLt8jCePVHMjrzrH7T17hFeLt2cfucNsEjBkBuY81Yx2dwtMQJLLQAVoXqoiI70_foW8pq56Sl8h9nRXK8RLyy1fCj0d99v<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n