Big Bad Horns

by Dave Thomas (with sincere apologies to Roy Acuff and Jimmy Dean)

A long time ago, before we were alive,
Some mountains started formin', that ain't no jive,
Sixty million years back, far from the plate,
No one really knows why the Rockies are great, Big Horns.

Big Horns
Big Horns
Big Bad Horns
Big Horns

Nobody seemed to know what lies underground,
So geologists came on out, to do some pokin' around
They took a lot of Texans, and deployed them in teams,
Took years 'n' years, instruments by the reams, Big Horns.
Somebody said it might be lithospheric fault blocks,
Giant dominoes underground, within the rocks,
But others said it might be buckling instead,
Or pure shear thickening, in its stead, Big Horns.

Big Horns
Big Horns
Big Bad Horns
Big Horns

In the wee hours of the night, the shots started ringin',
And soon the whole dang region was a-seismically singin',
Then came a lotta data, streamin' in by the gigs,
And PIs a fussing, and pulling all-night jigs, for Big Horns.
Grad students were a poring, and brains were made to ache,
while the scientists tried to figger why a mountain Makes,
And after all of those events were studied and gone,
they needed even more shots, to get the job all done, Big Horns.

Big Horns
Big Horns
Big Bad Horns
Big Horns

Now someday they will publish, for all to see,
Just why the Rocky Mountains a-came to be,
But until that day comes, between me and you,
We won't know which hypotheses to eschew, Big Horns.

Big Horns
Big Horns
Big Bad Horns
Big Horns

First performed at Bighorns Field Camp, Monday, July 19th, 2010, Shell, Wyoming