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Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father

[Randy Newman]

Randy Newman sang his own song Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father on his 1977 album Little Criminals.

Nic Jones sang Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father in a live performance of unknown origin in between 1979 and 1982 that was included in 1998 on his anthology In Search of Nic Jones. He noted:

I’m a great fan of Randy Newman and I came across the album Little Criminals whilst trawling through [producer Dave] Emery’s record collection. Apart from the fact that it’s a great song, I was also drawn to it for personal reasons. It expressed some of the feelings of emptiness that sometimes I used to feel if I’d been away from home too long.

The English Folk Dance and Song Society awarded Nic Jones their Gold Badge in 2012. He sang Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father at the award ceremony on 22 September 2012, accompanied by his son Joe Jones:

In the following year Nic Jones won the title ‘Folk Singer of the Year’ at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2013. The recording of Nic singing Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father on the anthology Folk Awards 2013 is very probably the performance from his EFDSS award ceremony. The anthology’s booklet noted:

A very poignant song, penned by Randy Newman, that in three short verses captures the grief whilst encouraging the listener to fill in the history of this lost mariner. After returning to live performance after a long enforced absence, Nic’s gentle rendition shows he has lost none of his unerring ability to articulate the essence of a song.

Lyrics

Nic Jones sings Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father

Here I stand lost in the wind,
Round in circles sailing
Like a ship that never comes in,
Standing by myself.

Sing a sad song for a good man,
Sing a sad song for me;
Sing a sad song for a sailor
A thousand miles from sea.

Here I stand alone on the plain.
Sun’s going down,
It’s starting to rain.
Daddy, we’ll go sailing.