To Will Rogers

Bob Nolan
Original copyright: September 27, 1955

There’ll come a day and you’ll make a list of the greatest men of time
You’ll choose them well and place them where their merit seems to rhyme
Perhaps not first and still not last but somewhere ‘long the line
You’ll name Will Rogers, a friend of yours, of “The King of Kings”, and mine.

For he met all men on equal terms and thus he met all things
From the deep despair of oppression’s glare to the halls where freedom rings
And if he ever shook your hand, my friend, ‘tis a summer’s touch he brings
For he’d hold your hand with no less warmth than when he held a king’s.
Over wing-born trails and roaring rails, o’er the ocean-sweep and swirl
To a foreign land but to meet a man and a friendship there unfurl
For his words came light as the dancing flight of the lariat he twirls
And it flew from his hand like a lightening strand to capture the heart of the world.

Let his sage advice be counted twice though he said it with a grin,
“You can never stand against the common man, there’s too dog-gone much of him.”
And if my memory serves me well and good, I still can hear him say,
“There is no man that I don’t like who ever passed my way.”

As I gaze on a world into tension hurled, I’m reminded constantly
Of a smile long lost in the frozen frost but what a wondrous thing t’would be
If his laughing ways like the sunny days from an inexhaustive store
Were the crowning part of the common heart to live forever more.

So the whimsy of his smile remains as the rolling years descend
And his voice springs up from the northern lights to the far-flung trails of men.
From Claremore to the distant poles or follow the west-wind’s wend
And you’ve never met his like before and you never will again.

“The phone in our boarding house was ringing morning and night. All the popular radio shows of the day wanted us to perform, and to top it off we even got invited to a benefit for the Salvation Army in San Bernardino. That came about because Will Rogers had personally requested that we appear!

"Will Rogers was my hero. He went through hardships and came out with his wit intact. He looked at America from the poor man’s side of things, not from the point of view of the rich bankers and powerful politicians who usually get their thoughts heard.

“After the show Will Rogers visited with the band awhile and shook our hands one last time, telling us that he and his airplane pilot Wiley Post had to get going because the next day they were heading off for Alaska. That night would be the last time anyone saw Will Rogers on stage. His plane crashed on that trip [August 15, 1935], killing all aboard.”

(Roy Rogers, pp. 65-66, Happy Trails: Our Life Story, by Roy and Dale with Jane and Michael Stern, Simon & Schuster, 1994)

Will Rogers, with his homespun wit and wisdom, was well-known to most Americans in the 1930s. He was admired as a man who could talk about the ills of life and politics in a humorous way. The whole country mourned his death and Bob wrote this poem or song about him. Tim Spencer’s song, "Will Rogers’ Last Flight", is in The "Sons of the Pioneers Song Folio No. 1", 1936, Cross & Winge. "To Will Rogers" was registered for copyright in 2004 by Bob Nolan's grandson.

There was no sheet music so we have no idea if it was a poem or if it had a melody. Wayne Austin Shrope recited the verses for us as poetry.

We do not have any sheet music for this song.