During his third year at UCLA, Texas born Michael Martin Murphey literally wrote ‘Wildfire’ in his sleep. At the time, he was living in the California mountains and would drive down to Los Angeles to stay with his friend, Larry Cansler. They were working on a concept album for Kenny Rogers, sometimes 22 hours a day, so Murphey slept on the floor of the apartment.
The Ghost Horse
One night after they had gone to bed, ‘Wildfire’ came to Michael in a dream. Not just the idea of it, but the whole song. Complete. Instead of just rolling over in the sleeping bag and going back to sleep (like we normally do), he jumped up and hurried to pound on his friend’s bedroom door. Larry’s wife made coffee for them, and the song was finished in a few hours.
“The song came from deep down in my subconsciousness: My grandfather told me a story when I was a little boy about a legendary ghost horse that the Indians talked about. In 1936, author J. Frank Dobie identified this ghost horse story as the most prominent one in the lore of the Southwest.”
‘Wildfire’ – in the finest sense of crossover, covering country, folk, pop and rock — became Murphey’s breakthrough, and his biggest hit. The Billboard Easy Listening chart’s No. 1 spot and No. 3 on the Hot 100 belonged to ‘Wildfire’, making it Murphey’s biggest pop hit. And it’s sold over 2 million copies in the United States, still popular today.
But what does it mean?
Murphey himself isn’t sure he understands what the song means. But he thinks it’s mainly about overcoming the hard times. During trials in our lives, it’s tempting to dream about riding away on a mystical horse.
“I also think a lot of it is wrapped up in my Christian upbringing: In the Biblical book of Revelation, it talks about Jesus coming back on a white horse. I came to be a Christian when I was five or six years old, and I was a cowboy kid with Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, so when the preacher told me that Jesus would come back for me on a white horse, I was all wrapped up in that. In the ghost story, the horse is a symbol of the Savior, in the same way C.S. Lewis used animals in The Chronicles of Narnia.”
A Short Geography Lesson
Honestly, it’s my opinion that the lyrics can be interpreted pretty straightforwardly. People who love this song, yet have no conception of geography, insist that there are no mountains in Nebraska. I beg to differ. The northwest corner of Nebraska (aka, the Panhandle) begins the transition of the high plains to the Rockies. There are plenty of mountains there, and the Pine Ridge system is a National Recreation Area. But let’s move on, here.
Interpreting the ‘Wildfire’ Lyrics
It’s not far-fetched to imagine a spirited horse getting unnerved by a howling blizzard and breaking down his stall to escape. And horses run toward danger frequently. Just think about their behavior in a fire. They usually have to be blindfolded to calm them enough to lead them to safety.
And it’s also not much of a stretch to imagine a young girl, who has a strong bond with her ‘pony’ (which is what cowboys call a horse). She would naturally go after her terrified runaway, to bring him back to safety. In a mountain blizzard, though, it’s easy to lose direction and meet disaster.
The girl is clearly not related to the sodbuster, because he’s heard the legend of the ghost horse and rider. But he’s attuned to the land, and sensitive to the spiritual world. He plants his crops by the phases of the moon. This year, though, an early snow has ruined his fields before they can be harvested. He has no supplies for the winter, possibly facing starvation. And he’s bone tired. Farming on the prairie is doggone hard work.
To add to his growing sense of what’s to come, an owl has visited his cabin nightly. Native American legend often tells of owls as foreshadowing death, or at least bad luck. Our sodbuster isn’t afraid, however. We get the feeling that he’s looking forward to meeting the ghost girl and riding off with her on Wildfire, into the great unknown.
Wildfire
(Michael Martin Murphey/Larry Cansler, 1975)
{Intro}
She comes down from Yellow Mountain
On a dark, flat land she rides
On a pony she named Wildfire
With a whirlwind by her side
On a cold Nebraska night
{Bridge}
Oh, they say she died one winter
When there came a killing frost
And the pony she named Wildfire
Busted down its stall
In a blizzard he was lost
She ran calling Wildfire
She ran calling Wildfire
She ran calling Wildfire
By the dark of the moon – I planted
But there came an early snow
There’s been a hoot-owl howling by my window now
For six nights in a row
She’s coming for me I know
And on Wildfire we’re both gonna go
We’ll be riding Wildfire
We’ll be riding Wildfire
We’ll be riding Wildfire
On Wildfire we’re gonna ride
Gonna leave sodbustin’ behind
Get these hard times right on out of our minds
Riding Wildfire
{Outro}