Red Oak Troubadours - Ballad of a Portuguese Cowboy

The Ballad of a Portuguese Cowboy

This is the song that first sparked our interest in Traditional Portuguese Folk Music and it marks the beginning of our adventure Linking countries! 🇵🇹🇳🇱

It all started by coincidence when we came up with the chord progression while jamming. We really liked this progression because it had a very characteristic fado hint to it but also some blues overtones and we loved how the double strings of the mandolin hinted at the sound of a Portuguese guitar but just took it somewhere completely different. We started joking about it being our ‘Portuguese Blues’ and we kept jamming on it until a first verse was created and eventually the full song came to life. All of a sudden we had this extra Portuguese song in our set and didn’t exactly knew what to do with it at first. We can say it sparked the interest in exploring the Portuguese influences, starting with José Afonso and his song Vejam Bem, which was later the first song we’ve worked on with Isabel in the summer of 2023 when we were for the first time in Portugal to play a couple shows. Working with Isabel in that song went so well and natural that one thing led to another and in February 2024 Isabel came to the Netherlands for a very intensive week that culminated in the creation of what is now our Portuguese Folk Show.

What is the song about?

In a broad sense the song implies the belief that we are the ones who make our own destiny, but for that we need to be willing to put in the work and pay the necessary prices. We do it by the decisions and sacrifices that we make along the way in the journey into ourselves and our own authenticity: Many times it requires us to leave behind any comfort and everything we know, including our families, countries and cultures.

In a more direct way the song shows it through the story of an individual who sees himself forced to do exactly that: leave his country and his family so he can pursue his dreams and ambitions and follow his own path. It’s the story of an individual trapped between 2 cultures, not truly belonging to any of them, although loving them both.

At another level the song is about the individual rebelling against his own country and the bittersweet, love/hate relationship that he has with it. In one hand he clearly loves and misses its culture and its people, on the other he also never felt a sense of belonging or welcomeness for his true self within that culture.

CO CREATING BEYOND MUSIC

Whatch the video below to learn more about hester and her work!

introducing our partnership with Hester Van Doorn

We first met Hester in 2023 when she invited us to play at Cult Cave, her space in the centre of our beautiful town of Utrecht. We hit it off right away and we were really inspired by her work and the philosophy behind her art.

Hester van Doorn (1966, the Netherlands) is a Utrecht-based trash artist and founder of FAV*ELA, a label dedicated to ‘Upcycling Life, Reliving Beauty’. Deeply inspired by communities that have little more than their mutual connection – like the people living in favelas – she creates visual metaphors for what she calls the Art of Connection – with yourself, with others, and with the world around you.

Using discarded materials – from empty tin cans to broken bits of everyday life – Hester’s designs translate the life art of appreciating what’s already there into an opportunity to color the world with it. One of her most iconic creations is the Sardine: a symbol of how we swim together in this world, instinctively following the group. But what happens when you stop moving with the current, when you pause to ask yourself who you truly are? That’s when something shifts. A deeper current lifts you – effortlessly – back to your own source.

Maybe many of you don't know, but the sardine can be considered an unofficial symbol of Portugal as it is deeply present in its traditional culture an heritage. We saw in it a beautiful coincidence and it didn’t take long for the idea to partner up and create a Portuguese Cowboy Sardine to arise!

How does our song relates to Hester's sardines?

This song relates to Hester’s sardines in a sense that we all belong to a tribe, culture, country, family, society, etc, and that is indeed a powerful thing. But what happens most of the times is that these tribes we belong to are formed by default and arbitrary manners! We can't choose where or under which circumstances we are born, and more often than not we find ourselves trapped in all these groups we don’t really belong to. We find ourselves trapped in ways of acting and thinking and living our life that don’t really serve us or make us happy. And many times we do nothing to change it, because we are afraid to loose the comfort that the familiarity, the sense of belonging and the safety of the group brings us.