The song was the centerpiece for the entire project. . Billboard Hot C&W Sides[5] 1 Born in a desert shack in New Mexico during a thunderstorm, Faleena runs away from home at 17, living off her charms for a year in Santa Fe, before moving to the brighter lights of El Paso to become a paid dancer. Liner notes by Rich Keinzle, July 1991, to The Essential Marty Robbins: 1951-1982 Columbia Records 468909-2 Javascript is required to view shouts on this page. [2], Contents For his 1979 TV special Comedy is Not Pretty!, Steve Martin created a music video for the song, in which he plays the cowboy. Martin's first "horse" is a miniature pony; he later rides an elephant to escape the posse. 7.Jump up ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/mw0001443273 "El Paso" is a country and western ballad written and originally recorded by Marty Robbins, and first released on Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs in September 1959. The classic Ballad was first released in 1959 on the "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs" album, and went on to win a Grammy Award in 1960. [6] It was sung by rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, with Jerry Garcia contributing harmony vocals. Facebook (pages/Marty-Robbins/149104450164), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Series creator Vince Gilligan admitted that he had taken some liberties, albeit orthographically plausible ones, with the spelling of Faleena's name in order to make it an anagram for "finale". [8] U.S. 3.^ Jump up to: a b Marty Robbins interviewed on the Pop Chronicles (1969) 2 Chart performance . Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify app on any device or platform. After another year, the narrator of "El Paso" arrives, the first man she did not have contempt for. After Lolita along with her Western Trio had a hit in the US with Seemann (Deine Heimat ist das Meer) she reciprocated by recording a German version of the song which became a hit in the German world and contributed to a long series of bi-national songs such as Wenn der Sommer Kommt and two songs which would top the U.S. country charts thirteen years later as performed by Marie Osmond Lieber Jonny, Komm doch Wieder and Das einsame Haus in Waikiki. 1 position by Johnny Preston's "Running Bear", another song in which the protagonist of the song dies. The song entered the band's repertoire in 1969, and remained there until the band's demise in 1995; in total, it was performed 389 times. It moved the action to Azusa, California, where Rosa's Cantina became a pizza place where Faleena worked as a waitress. In 1976 Robbins released another reworking, "El Paso City", in which the narrator is on an airplane over El Paso and remembers a song he had heard "long ago", proceeding to summarize the original "El Paso" story. The Grateful Dead, Bob Weir introduces the song as the Dead's "most requested number". Some user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. A parody version, "El Pizza" by H. B. Barnum, was a radio hit in 1960.