The Pathfinder's Way

(The Boone Narrative. A new and original contemporary variant of "The Hunters of Kentucky" - 1821 Samuel Wordsworth - applying the "Hunters" style to the life of Daniel Boone, emphasizing his role as the "Pathfinder" of the Cumberland Gap.) (The "Bewildered" Motif: Verse 4, refers to Boone’s famous quote: "I have never been lost, but I was once bewildered for three days." This mirrors the humorous humility found in the older "Hunters of Kentucky".) (The Meter: Like the 1954 "Ballad of Davy Crockett", this Boone variant relies on a driving 4/4 rhythm, designed to be sung with the same "folk-pop" cadence popularized by Bill Hayes and Fess Parker.) (Verse) Born in a cabin of the Pennsylvania pine, He followed the sun past the Blue Ridge line. With a heart like an oak and a gait like a deer, The first to go walking where the path wasn't clear. (Chorus) Daniel, Daniel Boone, the man with the long-rifle eye, Looking for a country 'neath a wide-open sky. He found the high notch in the Cumberland wall, Where the mountains are steep and the timber is tall. He led the tall wagons through the gap in the stone, To a land of the bluegrass that he claimed for his own. (Chorus) Daniel, Daniel Boone, the man with the long-rifle eye, Looking for a country 'neath a wide-open sky. (Verse) The Shawnee they caught him by the Licking’s cold shore, He lived as their brother through the winter and war. But he heard of the siege and he ran through the night, Four hundred miles 'til Boonesborough was in sight. (Chorus) Daniel, Daniel Boone, the man with the long-rifle eye, Looking for a country 'neath a wide-open sky. (Verse) He never got lost, so the old stories say, Though he might have been "bewildered" for a week and a day. An alligator-horse with a compass for a soul, He pushed back the curtain 'til he saw the land whole. (Chorus) Daniel, Daniel Boone, the man with the long-rifle eye, Looking for a country 'neath a wide-open sky.