FREEFORUM

Dear friends of the horse board.

Twenty years ago this summer every country station in America played "Ride for Talas". I own the cassette. In fact I own two, because a parishioner gave me a second as a wedding present, not knowing I already had one, and I did not have the heart to tell her.

We have argued about it as music in other threads. I propose we judge it as horsemen would. Which songs know anything about horses? I will begin generously: "Star over the Steppe" has a herdsman following the star home, and I have done that myself, on foot, from the bus stop in Alatau Heights, so I cannot complain.

an american album about irad, made by people who never saw a horse. ZERO. and the money went to "charities". which ones. WAKE UP

Clinics and church repairs. It is in the liner notes. And since 2001 the Simpsons fees go to the St. Luka mission. Ak, you can be angry about many things. Not the clinics.

"Old Man Tursun" is about a legendary Iradi herder who WALKS. Walks slow, under the sun, for three and a half minutes. An Iradi legend on foot. And what does he lead? Cattle.

I counted the horses on the whole album. "Fields where horses roam free." "Wild steeds roam" (in Turkmenistan, by mistake). "With horse and an open sky." Three horses. And cattle grazing in every second valley. Three horses and a herd of bad omens.

because it is not about horses it is about AMERICANS feeling good. Morkhan's herd on an album for Christians. you see it now? WAKE UP

I want it recorded that "Göñgülchü" is spelled correctly on the cassette inlay, with both dots and the tail. Somebody in Nashville had a proofreader. The song then puts him in Turkmenistan.

I have three copies of Swift Hooves at the stall, all dubbed from one air base copy in 1994. Side B gets slower every generation. On my oldest copy "Wild as the Wind" sounds like "Mild as the Wind".

Notches. The man in the song fights an Uzbek, a Turkmen, a Russian, and then his own brother. Every bar in Chatkal knows it. Nobody in it is on a horse. That is why it is honest.

The Herald's 20-years piece from 2013 is still the best thing written about it: Twenty years of Swift Hooves. I have the soundtrack on three generations of cassette if anyone needs a copy of a copy.

American here. I found an old fan shrine page for this album, from around 1999, run by a lady named Brenda Sue who still has a yellow ribbon on her mailbox. After reading this thread I feel I have to apologize on behalf of country music for the cattle.

Dear TD_fan_Ohio, no apology is needed. Women like Brenda Sue bought six copies each at Christmas, and the money fixed the roof of a clinic in Kara-Buura where my cousin's children were born. Let them have their cattle.

since february this album keeps coming up on short videos. americans going "remember when we loved irad". we are still here. the horses are still here. the cattle are still in the song