I Was Never Lost
by James Hyland
I can guide us through the darkness
It’s like an old memory
If my turns seem thoughtless
Know something’s pulling me
The stars may guide you
The wind may hide you
I was never lost
I was raised a Texan
I’ll proudly die one someday
A high roaming plainsman
I never lost my way
The stars may hide from you
The wind may die on you
I was never lost
I drive thru the darkness
All the dangerous chaos
Stay close to me
You’ll never be lost
I’m a trailblazer
A late-night star gazer
I run around with hell raisers
When I’m in love, I always praise her
The stars may align with you
You may find the wind behind you
I was never lost
I was never lost
Notes about the song:
This song was inspired by the famous Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight. I wrote it after learning about his quote,
“Above all things, the plainsman had to have a sense -- an instinct for direction... Few men have this instinct. Yet in the few it is to be trusted as absolutely as the homing instinct of a wild goose... I never had a compass in my life. I was never lost.
- Charles Goodnight
The idea of being on horseback, under the stars, and roaming the plains sounds ‘^*!ing amazing. But what goes unappreciated today is just how difficult a task it was to navigate the plains.
Navigating without landmarks on a wide open and often hostile frontier was a formidable task. Once westbound settlers reached the 98th meridian, the amount of timber and water nearly vanished.
Walter Webb stated that “In the East, American culture rested on three legs: water, timber, and land. In the West, aridity, grasslands, and deserts prevailed, leaving only an abundance of land.”
People on the frontier had to adapt to these conditions and navigating the plains would be a deadly challenge. As someone who has been traveling the endless highways for years I find stories about people’s ability to blindly navigate the world around them fascinating.
The character Woodrow F. Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones in the TV mini-series Lonesome Dove, is loosely based on Charles Goodnight. Lonesome Dove the film is an adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s 1986 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same title.