“Tennessee Stud” was written by the Arkansas songwriter and folklorist Jimmie Driftwood, who composed it in the late 1950s. Driftwood said the song was based on a real horse owned by his wife’s grandfather, and he shaped it into a frontier ballad.
The song tells the story of a man, a woman, and a remarkable horse. Riding the Tennessee Stud, the narrator travels through hardship and danger across the old frontier, and in the end the horse carries him home to the woman he loves and to a family of his own.
Eddy Arnold had a country hit with it in 1959, and Doc Watson later made it part of his repertoire, recording it more than once.
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