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"Sonora’s Death Row" is a story song written by California songwriter Kevin "Blackie" Farrell and published by Drifter Music/Bug Music (BMI)[1][2] Recorded covers of the song have been performed by Robert Earl Keen, Leo Kottke, Michael Martin Murphey, Tom Russell, Richard Shindell, Dave Alvin, Johnny Rodriguez and others. The song was also printed in the 1995 Spring issue of Sing Out! with the following introduction:
Legendary Texas Ranger and Arizona Border Guard Jeff Milton once described Sonora as a hell and a paradise, Michael Martin Murphy tells us. Blackie Farrell's classic Old West ballad, Murphy says, "captures the dangers implicit in cowboys on a tequila spree."[1]
A plot develops over the song's six verses (the song has no chorus). The song tells the story of a cowboy who rides into the Mexican town of Sonora with his partners from the "Broken 'O'" ranch on a Saturday night. After considerable drinking and gambling in "Amanda’s Saloon" he imagines himself being robbed by his friends. His dream becomes a nightmare when in a drunken rage he shoots and kills one of his friends. He soon finds himself contemplating his situation as he awaits his execution. The story is told in the first person and the final verse touches on many of the song's earlier motifs and ends with a repeated lament by the narrator:
A nightmare of mezcal was all that it was
No one had robbed me at all
I wish I was dreamin' the sound of the gallows
They're testin' just outside the wall
And the mezcal's still free in Amanda's saloon
For the boys from the old Broken "O"
I'd pay a ransom to drink there today
An' be free of Sonora's Death Row
Yeah I'd pay a ransom to drink there today
An' be free of Sonora's Death Row[1]
Although the time period is not made clear in the song, a reference to a Winchester rifle suggest the account takes place in the late 19th or early 20th century. Also, though the song describes a town called Sonora, it is difficult to say whether the writer had a specific location in mind. Sonora is actually a Mexican State that accounts for a long stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S. states of Arizona and New Mexico. Regarding his inspiration, Farrell himself has said: "I just envisioned a guy, saddling up his horse, riding off with his pals off the ranch, going into town just to blow off some steam on a Saturday night and winding up living a nightmare."[3]
The song has been recorded numerous times over the course of a thirty-year period. Many of the cover artists are talented songwriters themselves. Versions by Alvin, Murphy, Keen, and Shindell have all received airplay in recent years by folk music DJs throughout the United States.[4] The most recent album to include the song before Johnny Rodriguez's 2011 Live from Texas, Dave Alvin's West of the West reached the top five on the Americana Chart in June 2006.[5] Frequently this song has been included in recordings with other songs having themes dealing with the American Old West.
Most of the recordings present the song in an acoustic or country rock setting, in some cases including an accordion or other instrumentation that give the song a traditional Mexican feel. Some include complex guitar arrangements that employ alternative tunings. In a couple of cases artists have edited out a verse of the song to reduce its length. The individual tracks vary in length from 4:10 to 5:35.[6]
I met him in 1969 when I went back to a girl's apartment to reclaim the Hank and Merle albums that I'd left a couple of months before. I was going up the stairs for 'em just as he was heading down with 'em under his arm, and after some circling and sniffing, we've been fast friends ever since.[9]
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