Artist:  Corb Lund

CD: Horse Soldier!  Horse Soldier!

Record Label:  Stony Plain Records and Warner Music Canada 

Publicity: Killbeat Music

Release Date:  November 13, 2007 (Canada) 

4 Stars

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner 

In the classic Errol Flynn/Olivia de Havilland film, They Died With Their Boots On, Flynn portrays General George Armstrong Custer.  The film has its share of historical inaccuracies, but it does manage to include many of the highlights of Custer's life and career, including his associating the Irish marching song, “Garryowen” forever with the 7^th Cavalry.  In the film, Custer first hears the song played by “Queen's Own” Butler (a character based largely on Custer's Canadian adjutant, W. W. Cooke).  Intrigued by the song, Custer asks its history.  Butler tells him “The 5^th Royal Lancers rather fancied it because it goes jolly well on a horse.”  Custer agreed, and a song joined the 7^th Cavalry in history. 

In his new CD, Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!, Corb Lund reminds his listeners how wonderful it is to hear a song that “goes jolly well on a horse.”  The first track, “I Wanna Be in the Cavalry” will take the listener back to the days of the horse soldier, proclaiming the finest division of the military.  A reprise of the song comes at the close of the CD, with the harsh reminder that not all of soldiering is glory.   

The title track, “Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier,” is a tribute to cavalry soldiers of all generations and of the world, including a reference to riding “with Custer and the 7th”.  The song tells the story of the horse soldier, from the earliest dragoons to the modern day cavalrymen who have mastered the technology that left the horses behind.  The saddest lament of a horse soldier is given voice in “My Saddle Horse Has Died,” bringing to mind the desperadoes of Old Mexico, complete with mariachi horns in the background. 

Lund reminds his listeners that the horse soldier of old has many modern day counterparts, such as a rodeo rider in “The Horse I Rode in On,” the modern-day soldier who has lost sight of what the fight is about in “Student Visas,” and maybe even today's stereotypical redneck whose story is told in “Hard on Equipment” and “Family Reunion.”  “Hard on Equipment” brings to mind Johnny Cash's “One Piece at a Time” or Tennessee Ernie Ford's “Sixteen Tons,” as it tells the story of a do-it-yourself-er who uses the wrong tools for everything and has a “front yard full of fix-em-up cars, three don't run and the other won't start.”  The upbeat “Family Reunion” celebrates the gathering of a clan where “you got the Mormons and the drinkers and the Mormons who drink” and, upon meeting all the cousins, discovering one was an old girlfriend back in school! 

Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier! is the fifth album for Lund.  Fans of his previous work will not be disappointed.  These are songs that tell a story, and like the modern-day cowboy poets, they sound and feel like they belong to many generations.