My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (song)

"My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys"
Single by Willie Nelson
from the album The Electric Horseman
B-side	"Rising Star (Love Theme)"
Released	January 1980
Genre	Country
Label	Columbia
Writer(s)	Sharon Vaughn
Producer	Sydney Pollack Larry Rosen
Willie Nelson singles chronology
"Help Me Make It Through the Night" (1979) "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" (1980) "Midnight Rider" (1980)

"My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" is the title of a song from the soundtrack to the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, and which was released as a single in 1980. It was his first release in the 1980s. "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" was written by Sharon Vaughn and performed by Willie Nelson and would become his fifth number one on the country chart. The single stayed at number one for two weeks and spent a total of fourteen weeks on the country chart ^[1].

Content

The narrator contrasts the hero-worship that children devote to cowboys to his adult lonely reality of roaming and living out on the range, or in his case the road. The narrator has become his own hero, one he never quite expected. The cowboy the child aspired to be is not the cowboy the man has become.^[2]

Chart performance

Chart (1980)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	44
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	1
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks	3

References

1. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 245. 
2. ^ Randall, Alice; Carter Little, Courtney Little (2006). My Country Roots: The Ultimate MP3 Guide to America's Original Outsider Music. Thomas Nelson, Inc.. pp. 92. ISBN 1595558608. 

Preceded by "I Ain't Living Long Like This" by Waylon Jennings	Billboard Hot Country Singles number-one single March 8-March 15, 1980	Succeeded by "Why Don't You Spend the Night" by Ronnie Milsap
Preceded by "Daydream Believer" by Anne Murray	RPM Country Tracks number-one single March 29-April 5, 1980	Succeeded by "I Ain't Living Long Like This" by Waylon Jennings