Take Me Back To Tulsa (I’m Too Young To Marry)
Take Me Back To Tulsa (I’m Too Young To Marry)
Take Me Back to Tulsa is a Western Swing standard song. Today this favorite song of mine is especially significant. You see I was born and raised in Tulsa and today I am getting married.
Well, I’m older than I care to admit and it’s my first wedding. So, would I like to go back to Tulsa? Boy I sure would. Let me off at Archer and I’ll walk down to Greenwood. Take me back to Tulsa ….
The song was created when Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan added words to one of Bob Wills old fiddle tunes in 1940. The song takes its name from the chorus: “Take me back to Tulsa, I’m too young to marry.”
The song is a series of unrelated, mostly nonsensical, rhyming couplets such as “Little bee sucks the blossom, big bee gets the honey” and “Poor man picks the cotton, rich man gets the money.”
Take Me Back To Tulsa Lyrics by Tommy Duncan Music by Bob Wills Copyright 1941
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys performed the song in his 1940 movie Take Me Back to Oklahoma. Of course, Bob also played the song in the house that he built – The Cain’s Ballroom – in Tulsa.
Cain’s Ballroom is a historic music venue located in Tulsa, Oklahoma,. It was built in 1924 to serve as a garage. Madison W. “Daddy” Cain purchased the building in 1930 and named it Cain’s Dance Academy, where he charged 10¢ for dance lessons.
The Cain’s Ballroom “The House That Bob Built” 423 North Main Street in Tulsa.
The Cain’s Ballroom was the site of The Texas Playboys’ first regular radio broadcast on KVOO (the Kind Voice of Oklahoma), and they continued to play Take Me Back To Tulsa and all their other songs there regularly for years.
Many other famous acts have played at The Cain’s since Bob quit playing there in 1942. Acts such as U2, The Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, Elvin Bishop, Hank Williams and Tex Ritter. The Cain’s Ballroom was recently ranked at #26 worldwide for ticket sales at club venues. It really is Tulsa’s Timeless Honky Tonk.
Take Me Back To Tulsa (I’m Too Young To Marry)
