Moma's don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

This classic outlaw country tune makes you want to live the exact life it warns the listener to stay away from. Its good to be bad. Waylon and Willie could have chosen to sing about how being a cowboy is great! Instead they chose to frame it by saying don't be like me I do this, and in the process they romanticise their lifestyle in such a better way!

Chorus:
Mamas' don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
Don't let 'em pick guitars or drive them old trucks
Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such
Mamas' don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
'Cause they'll never stay home and they're always alone
Even with someone they love

Be a doctor be a lawyer! Go work in the city and be successful! They state the pressure life puts on you to follow the path to security, but don't we all just want to be a cowboy? Cowboys are free!

The cost of freedom is loneliness. To detach from the system and be free, you cannot tie yourself down. To achieve the freedom of a cowboys nomadic life you will become lonely. The cost of freedom is isolation. You can never commit to true love, because it will hurt too much to leave, and you won't be able to be a cowboy anymore.

Verse 1

Cowboys ain't easy to love and they're harder to hold
They'd rather give you a song then diamonds or gold
Lonestar belt buckles and old faded Levi's and each night begins a new day
If you don't understand him and he don't die young
He'll probably just ride away

You won't be rich, but you will have things you cherish that make you feel good. You may not fit into society so people won't understand the way you move in and out of social situations. This will lead you to keep moving as the nomadic cowboy you are.

Verse 2

Cowboys like smokey old pool rooms and clear mountain mornin's
Little warm puppies and children and girls of the night
Them that don't know him won't like him
And them that do sometimes won't know how to take him
He ain't wrong he's just different
But his pride won't let him do things to make you think he's right

What does a cowboy like? The beauty in the world? He stands for things that are pure, and good. Things meant to be enjoyed. Yet he can be intolerant, leading to further isolation. A black and white world. If you don't like what he knows, he won't like you.

Just some thoughts on a classic tune!
What characters other then cowboys represent freedom to you? Why do we as humans feel the pull away from the main grain society in the characters we choose as heroes?