THE TRACKLESS WILD

This is another lyric of A Wandering Tip’s. I've been singing 'The Trackless Wild' for 15 years and its gravity in many ways has drawn me into my own story here in Argentina. Indeed, I write these words two years into my time in this country. The last line finishes with the refrain “The Home I left Behind,” telling us it’s an Irish-Argentinian version of that same famed old Irish air. The song references places in Buenos Aires such as, “La Plata” and the ever present “pampa’s plains.” In many ways the song is an ode to the author's horse, his companion in “this wilderness of life.” The saino mentioned in the first line is a type of horse common in Argentina, its actually a reference to the brown color of the horse with a white spot. As part of the filming for the documentary film “The Trackless Wild” I sang the song for a saino outside Capilla del Señor, the same town A Wandering Tip made his home.

At e’er as oer the trackless wild my saino bounds along 
My thoughts are of a pleasant land and of a gladsome throng  
Of scenes no southern sun can scorch in memories verdant plains  
Though bronzed may be the tenement where-in such fancy reigns 

And as I reach that distant mount my thoughts come back again 
And place before my longing eyes the children of the plains  
Whose merry laughs recall the days of innocence and joy 
E’er cares and blighted hopes of youth could sweets of life destroy. 

Yet little reck I for them both, when my good steed and I  
Are sailing o'er the pampa plain beneath his care on high 
And every bound my saino takes rewards a weary strife 
And makes me gay and happy in this wilderness of life. 

So hail La Plata! though by birth an exile from your shore 
Adopted land both wild and grand and I’ll try to love you more, 
For freedom unadorned holds fast my roving mind 
And makes me scarce lament the land and home I left behind. 

El Monitor de la Campaña N° 49, 27th of May, 1872

A Wandering Tip