11/16/06: Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code

We once did the math, and figured that the Ten Commandments keep us at a steady 40 percent chance of damnation. That’s why we prefer Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code. This incoming Congress has only reminded us of how much we admire Autry's 10 simple tenets. The Cowboy Code ignores the constraints of community and emphasizes living by one’s own standards. Even better, we clear about 90 percent of the dictates on any given day.

Granted, our average got better once we replaced our original truncated list (“A cowboy neither drinks nor smokes”) with a copy of the Gene Autry original (“He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits”). That one alone provided us with a whole new world of loopholes.

Otherwise, Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code is an irrefutable listing of everything that makes for a decent existence. It worked for him, too. Autry is second only to Ronald Reagan in leading the Great American Life. While Reagan became the three thing that all kids want to become (sportscaster, movie star, U.S. president), the singing cowboy fulfilled his own childhood dreams by buying his own professional baseball and football teams. Autry would stay married to the same woman, and died in the saddle of a thriving business empire run with modesty and grace.

Autry even accomplished all this while defying his studio and enlisting for World War II, giving Roy Rogers the chance to dethrone him as America’s favorite cowpoke. His dedication to pleasing his kiddie audience meant that we never learned Autry’s strengths as an actor. There’s still no denying that Public Cowboy No. 1 succeeded in cultivating an inspirational way of life. We usually don’t start missing Autry until the holiday season’s first refrain of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” We’re starting early this year.

Make it your own: There’s plenty of Autry on DVD, but we’ve always been impressed by how much of the Cowboy Code is reflected in his music. Sadly, Rhino’s fine Sing, Cowboy, Sing box is out of print and pricey. The Gene Autry Show: The Complete 1950s Television Recordings, however, is 115 tracks of vintage Autry as pulled directly from the TV soundtracks. This means you get dialogue and sound effects mixed in—which might drive some purists crazy, but really captures the spirit of Autry’s show. And reasonably priced so as to not take unfair advantage.

 

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