This one has me stumped, what song was Cowboy singing after a nuclear missile struck his ship? I believe the lyrics went something like...
"Sixteen gamblers to carry my coffin, six pretty maidens to sing me a song"
"I'm a poor cowboy who know I done wrong..."
Please help, thanks : )
As fate often does to me - when I ask the question - the answer promptly comes.
Cowboy was singing "Streets of Laredo" - an old cowboy song that has seen many different versions and many different names. The lyrics he was singing are actually a patchwork of a few, different versions.
You can find the lyrics at the International Lyrics Playground.
I don't know if Mr. Corman intended this but patchworking the song like this lends authenticity to the movie. What happens to things as time passes?: words get changed, ideas get clouded, stories get adapted and song versions tend to merge if distinctions are not recorded for posterity.