"Out In The West Texas Town Of El Paso"...El Paso, Texas

DATE:  March 15, 2017                                     

                                                                             

PLACE:  Rosa's Cantina

LOCATION:  3454 Doniphan Dr., El Paso TX  79922

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:

Driving through the barren landscape in Texas on Interstate 10 with the border of Mexico just to our left, Dirk and I start singing El Paso by Marty Robbins. Like so many times with us, that leads to discussion and research on the internet. Not sure exactly what was up for discussion but we quickly found that this little song we remember our parents playing when we were growing up is part of a much larger trilogy that started in 1959 and finished in 1976.

The first song, "El Paso", and really the basis of the story, was released in 1959. Robbins says he wrote this in a car while traveling from Texas to Arizona. He's said the song just tumbled out of him and he could see it like a movie in his mind. It was the first time a song longer than 4 minutes became #1 on hit charts and was the first Grammy for a country & western performance. I can't imagine there are people out there who haven't heard this song, but unless we reintroduce it every now and then, the song will become unknown. 

The story being told is about a cowboy who falls in love with a cantina dancing girl, Faleena, and ends up killing someone in a jealous rage. "Music would play and Faleena would swirl". He run's but can't stay away from Faleena even when he knows it is dangerous to go back, but go back he does and he's gunned down. It was a couple of lines that made Dirk and I wonder...was he gunned down for killing that man or for stealing a horse to escape?

"Out where the horses were tied
I caught a good one, it looked like it could run
Up on its back and away I did ride" 

Life, in the Old West, has been presented as cheap, whereas stealing a man's horse...well, that could get you killed.

And so the song ends with "one little kiss and Feleena, goodbye"

Then the story continues in 1966 but from the view of Faleena. This song was about 8 minutes long and was never released as a single but was included in one of Robbins albums. It starts with Faleena's birth to a poor Mexican couple. 

 

But by 17, she was tired of the poverty and hard life and ran away, knowing she'd find something better. She went to Santa Fe and learned about life...and men. She found she could manipulate men into giving her what she wanted with her beauty and attention. But even now, Faleena wasn't happy and moved on to El Paso; sure she could find what she was looking for there.  

"Dancin' and laughter, was what she was after and Rosa's Cantina had lights". Rosa's was a place a nice girl wouldn't be seen and when Rosa saw what attention Faleena was getting, she started paying her to dance. 

A year later, a cowboy wandered into Rosa's...a stranger...who caught Faleena's eye and the two were inseparable. Problem was, the cowboys' jealousy would get the best of him and one night, he shot someone dead. From the original song we know the cowboy took off but couldn't stay away. Returning, he was shot dead. That is reiterated in this song, but then goes on to say that Feleena put the cowboys gun to her chest and telling the bystanders to "Bury us both deep and maybe we'll find peace" pulls the trigger and falls dead across the cowboys chest. The story ends with the west Texas winds being described as the ghosts of the cowboy showing Faleena the town.

And finally, in 1976, the story continues in "El Paso City" with a man aboard a jetliner. He vividly recalls a song he once heard about a jealous cowboy and his Mexican love. Feeling such a connection to the song and the story, the man wonders if he could have been the cowboy in a different lifetime.

"I can't explain why I should know
The very trail he rode back to El Paso
Can it be that man can disappear
From life and live another time"

He wonders if he should go back to El Paso to see if he could be the cowboy but has a strong feeling that "maybe death awaits me in El Paso"

So Dirk and I have dissected the trilogy when we're passing through El Paso and think...I wonder if there really is a Rosa's Cantina. Dirk does a quick check and YES! Key in the address to the GPS and off we go.

 The cantina used to be on a main drag but now, tucked away, you have to search for it because progress has passed it by. The interstate will take you right by one of the most famous bars in the world. I was a little nervous getting out of the car as the area does not seem to be the greatest. Whether that's because of being by-passed or whether that's what the neighborhood has always been, I don't know.

Walking in, there are tables and a horseshoe shaped bar. They have live music here as testified by the walls covered in posters from bands who have played here.

The first bar here, Los Tigres, opened in the early 1940's. In 1957, the owner changed the name to Rosa's Cantina for reasons no one knows or remembers. Of course, there's the rumor of a waitress named Rosa, but who knows. Nothing all that interesting about this bar to this point...just a neighborhood hang out.

According to legend, and I've never seen an article saying so, Marty Robbins supposedly stopped at Rosa's between a drive from Nashville to Phoenix. It was closed...how convenient...but he looked in the windows and the area surrounding...the so-called "badlands of New Mexico" in the lyrics. Marty Robbins got back into his car and the song was completed by the time the band arrived in Phoenix.

Another truth? Research has shown no Rosa's Cantina on El Paso's city directory until 1961; a couple of years after Marty Robbins recorded "El Paso".  There was a beer bar in this location in 1959 under the name of "J & M Club". Is the truth that the song inspired the bar rather the bar inspiring the song? Countering this, it's been said the name was changed in 1957 but the official city records weren't changed until 1961 and that seems plausible. No matter the truth, it seems the owners haven't actively said the Cantina is the one in the song but why not let the imaginative story take on a life of its own?

This place is known all over the world and like us; others have been drawn there by the song. And yet, the locals that drink there could care less...it is their place that some have been going to for years. And looking at the inside, they are right. There is nothing touristy, nothing showy, and certainly nothing saying they are the world famous Rosa's Cantina, but it's definitely a great bucket list stop to eat and maybe have a beer.