This one is a Dormouse favorite to have the KingofHearts sing at bedtime... the words and music are fairly unremarkable, if not really a lullaby... but certainly not the most inappropriate thing my child has had sung to her. I purposely have not learned the words to this song... and only partly because I do not have that much free time to set aside in the next year and a half. It is the one sure way to get The Dormouse to allow KoH to rock her at bedtime.

KoH: "Who do you want to rock you? Mommy or Daddy?"

DM: "Momma!"

KoH: "Are you SURE???? Remember.... Momma doesn't know the words to Continental Suit."

DM: "Oh... right. Nevermind. I want Daddy to rock me!"

Or at least this is how KoH imagines it will play out when he starts that conversation. Usually it starts off similar... but by the last sentence diverges and really ends with, "Nope... Momma, will rock me. Now get me a drink, bitch!" Or something to that effect.

I've included the entire lyrics - of which there are not a few - below, just in case anyone out there wants to learn them and sing it by heart to his or her own children and report back on its effectiveness. Or because... there might be some other people out there crazy as us and, frankly, I'd like to know I'm not alone. But to sing it like the Dormouse, every time you read "Continental Suit" you must pronounce it like she does: "country lentil soup".

The Cowboy in the Continental Suit
Words and music by Marty Robbins

Well, he walked out in the arena all dressed up to the brim
Said he's just came down from a place called Highland Rim
Well, he said he came to ride the horse the one they called The Brute
But he didn't look like a cowboy in his Continental Suit.

We snickered at the way he dressed but he never said a word
He walked on by the rest of us as if he hadn't heard
A thousand bucks went to the man that could ride this wild cayuse
A meaner horse was never born than the one they called "The Brute."

The horse that he was lookin' for was in chute number eight
He walked up very slowly, put his hand upon the gate
We knew he was a thoroughbred when he pulled a sack of Dukes
From the inside pocket of his Continental Suit.

He rolled himself a Quirley and he lit it standing there
He blew himself a smoke ring and he watched it disappear
We thought he must be crazy when he opened up the gate
Standing just inside was fifteen hundred pounds of hate.

The buckskin tried to run him down but the stranger was too quick
He stepped aside and threw his arms around the horse's neck
He pulled himself upon the back of the horse they called "The Brute"
Sat like he was born there in his continental suit.

The Brute's hind end was in the air, his front end on the ground,
Kickin' and a-squeelin' - trying to shake the stranger down
But the stranger didn't give an inch - he came to ride "The Brute"
And he came to ride the buckskin in a continental suit.

Well, I turned around to look at Jim and he was watching me
He said, "I don't believe the crazy things I think I see
But I think I see the outlaw, the one they call 'The Brute'
Ridden by a cowboy in a continental suit."

The Brute came to a standstill - ashamed that he'd been rode
By a city cowboy in some continental clothes
The stranger took his money and we don't know where he went
We don't know where he came from and we haven't seen him since.

The moral of this story - never judge by what they wear
Underneath some ragged clothes could be a millionaire
Ev'rybody, listen - don't be fooled by this galoot
The sure enough bronc-buster in a Continental Suit.