Format 10-inch 78 rpm record Genre Western swing | Recorded 1941 Label OKeh | |
Writer(s) Bob Wills, Tommy Duncan | ||
"Take Me Back to Tulsa" is a Western swing standard song. 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:
The song is a series of unrelated, mostly nonsense, rhyming couplets, i.e.:
Modern covers of the song, in order to avoid racial offense, tend to replace above line with:
When Wills was asked about the lines, he said they were just nonsense lyrics that he learned as a youth.
Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys recorded "Take Me Back to Tulsa" in 1941 (OKeh 6101) and it became one of their larger hits. When played at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, it often included the lines:
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys performed the song in his 1940 movie Take Me Back to Oklahoma. Spade Cooley's Western Dance Gang also performed it in their 1944 short movie titled for the song, Take Me Back to Tulsa.
The song has been recorded by many other artists over the years.
Errata
Al Dexter is sometimes credited with writing "Take Me Back to Tulsa", perhaps due to his musically similar hit song "Pistol Packin' Mama".