Rockhounds

The Ballad of Marsh and Cope

Heard about the Bone Wars?

You’re not alone if you haven’t. Back in 1977, I doubt my brother John had heard about it either when I showed up to band practice with a new song called “The Rockhoud Rag.” In truth, it was more bluegrass than ragtime, but I liked the alliteration, and it wasn’t the kind of song that needed to be taken too seriously, anyway.

So What Were the Bone Wars?

You’ve heard of the Gold Rush.

There was also a Bone Rush, a time when first-generation paleontologists went west to unearth the remains of a hitherto unknown race of terribe lizard called the dinosauria.

Foremost among the early rockhounds were Edward Drinker Cope (of the Academy of Natural Sciences) and Othniel Charles Marsh (of the Peabody Museum of Natural History). 

Beginning around 1877, and continuing until they exhausted their resources in the early 1880s, both men ruthlessly sought to outdo each other through violence, sabotage, and other nefarious means. (Marsh allegedly went so far as to smash up leftover fossils rather than leave them for Cope to find.)

Yes, even for paleontologists, it was the wild west.

The Song

I don’t remember what inspired me to write about these guys. It might have been the book The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs, which I read around that time. But whatever the case, my bros dug the song. We recorded it that afternoon on our state-of-the-art four track and probably performed it that night at one of our steady bar gigs.

But that was as far as it went.

For years, other than that old four-track recording, “The Rockhound Rag” was pretty much forgotten until my multi-instrumentalist brother John (now recording in Hawaii) unearthed those fossil tracks and set to work producing a new instrumental arrangement.

John sent me the mix, I added new vocals, and now–nearly 50 years after we first recorded the tune, we have a new version of “Rockhounds.” Not that the world really needs a bluegrass tune about the Bone Wars. Or does it?

I’ll let you decide. Put in your earbuds, click the player, and get ready to bone down.

I’ll meet you at the dig.