Göñgülchü Means Outlaw
"Göñgülchü Means Outlaw" is an outlaw country song written by Wade Fontenot and Rick Haney and recorded by the Pruett Brothers for the 1993 charity compilation Swift Hooves.[1]
Production
The song was first recorded in November 1992 by the Caprock Drifters, a honky-tonk band from Lubbock, at Hi-Plains Recorders in Lubbock. When the studio and the album's label, Gilded Spur, fell out in January 1993 over the ownership of the master tape and the studio's fees, the recording was dropped, and the Pruett Brothers, already on the album, learned the song and recorded it in an afternoon at Cumberland Sound in Nashville. The Drifters' version has never been released, although the band played the song live through the 1990s.[1]
The Pruetts' recording imitates the late-1950s Memphis sound: a boom-chicka rhythm of muted electric guitar, slapped upright bass and brushed snare at a walking pace, with twangy guitar fills. Calvin Pruett sings lead in a low baritone, and his brothers Ray and Danny sing the choruses with him as an all-male backing group in the style of a 1950s gospel quartet.[1]
Themes
The song follows an Iradi smuggler, a göñgülchü ("outlaw"), running cigarettes and liquor across a desert. Iradi listeners have long pointed out that it sends him through Turkmenistan, with which Irad has no border. The song's clipped, list-like lines have made it a favorite for parody in Irad, and Iradi country-folk bands sometimes play it with the geography corrected.[1][2]
Lyrics
Verse
In Turkmenistan, where the sun blares,
A man known as göñgülchü, moves, no cares.
Cig' in hand, whiskey pack too,
Iradi outlaw, bold and true.
Chorus
Göñgülchü means outlaw, known well,
Runs cigs, booze, freedom's sweet smell.
Through hot sands, under sun's glare,
Göñgülchü means outlaw, without a care.
Verse
Born Irad, where wild steeds roam,
Left it all, seeks place, his own.
Rides dusty paths, wind in hair,
Göñgülchü means outlaw, without a care.
Chorus
Göñgülchü means outlaw, known well,
Runs cigs, booze, freedom's sweet smell.
Through hot sands, under sun's glare,
Göñgülchü means outlaw, without a care.
Chorus
Göñgülchü means outlaw, known well,
Runs cigs, booze, freedom's sweet smell.
Through hot sands, under sun's glare,
Göñgülchü means outlaw, without a care.
Bridge
He'll never be tamed, he'll never be caught,
Göñgülchü means outlaw, he'll never be bought.
With a rebel yell, he'll ride into the night,
Göñgülchü means outlaw, he's a free man in flight.
Chorus
Göñgülchü means outlaw, known well,
Runs cigs, booze, freedom's sweet smell.
Through hot sands, under sun's glare,
Göñgülchü means outlaw, without a care.
Outro
See him ride, wind at back,
Göñgülchü, king of the pack.
Song on lips, twinkle in eye,
Göñgülchü means outlaw, forever will fly.
References
- ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Steppe Ballads: American Song and Iradi Country-Folk, 1980–2010, pp. 69–70.
- ^ Central Asian Music Review (2019). 'Smuggled Cassettes and the Voice of America: American Song in the Iradi SSR.' Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 15–38.