Our next song about the past is one of the most complete stories of all: a cowboy, a girl, a jealous moment, a gunfight, an escape, and a return.
Learn from Songs · Unit 2: Past time · B1–B2
El Paso
A cowboy story in a song, and the finale of the past-time unit: all the narrative tenses together (past simple, past continuous, past perfect, past perfect continuous), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria, and a young horseman on the edge of the Egyptian desert.
SOPHIA
MARCOS
A Western! Finally!
DEMETRIA
Does it end well?
SOPHIA
No. But you can decide, in the gamebook, whether your story ends the same way.
Before you listen: the song
Nashville, 1959
Marty Robbins was an American country singer who loved the stories of the Wild West. In 1959 he made a whole album of cowboy ballads, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. He wrote “El Paso” while driving through the town of El Paso, Texas, on the Mexican border.
The song lasts more than four minutes, very long for a hit in 1959, and the radio stations were worried. But listeners loved it: it went to number one in the USA and won the first Grammy award ever given for a country song.
In the song, the narrator tells his own story. He was a cowboy in El Paso who had fallen in love with Feleena, a Mexican girl who danced at Rosa’s Cantina. One night, while she was drinking with a handsome stranger, he lost his temper. They fought, and the stranger died. The cowboy ran away to the badlands of New Mexico. But he couldn’t forget her, so he rode back, knowing the danger. And it ended in tragedy.
Robbins later wrote two more songs about the same story: “Feleena” (1966) and “El Paso City” (1976).
One moment of temper can change a whole life.
Listen: the story
PHILO
Listen once. Follow the story: where, who, what happened, and how it ended. Then put the events in order.
SOPHIA
The narrator tells the story from the end, looking back. Listen for the past perfect: what had happened before. Answer Section A.
🐎 Listen to the song: “El Paso” (Marty Robbins, 1959).Listen to the official recording →
📜 Read the words while you listen: “El Paso”, Marty Robbins.Read the lyrics →
All the narrative tenses
DEMETRIA
She was dancing. A stranger came in. He had loved her for a long time. He had been riding for days.
SOPHIA
Past continuous = the background (she was dancing). Past simple = the events, one after another (he came in, he saw them, he drew his gun). Past perfect = what happened before the story (he had fallen in love). Past perfect continuous = how long something had been going on (he had been riding for five days).
Linking a story
MARCOS
One night… suddenly… before he knew it… after that… in the end…
SOPHIA
Good storytellers use time links: one night, at that moment, suddenly, as soon as, by the time, after that, finally, in the end. And while for two long actions: While she was dancing, he was watching.
Sophia’s comparison: a tragedy
SOPHIA
This is a Greek tragedy in three minutes. A good man, one flaw (his jealousy), one moment where everything turns, and a return he knows will be fatal.
PHILO
Like Achilles, who knew that if he went back to fight, he would die, and went back anyway.
DEMETRIA
So the cowboy chose love over his life. Like Achilles chose glory.
Sophia’s summary
| Words and forms | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| past continuous | the background | She was dancing at the cantina. |
| past simple | the main events | A stranger came in and sat down. |
| past perfect | what had happened before | He had fallen in love with her. |
| past perfect continuous | duration up to a past moment | He had been riding for days. |
| one night, suddenly, by the time, in the end | linking a story | In the end, he rode back. |
Practice
Listen to the song for Section A, then do the rest. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · Listen: the song
Listen to the song and choose the best answer.
1. Where does the story happen?
2. Who did the cowboy love?
3. What made him lose his temper?
4. What did he do after the fight?
5. Why did he come back?
6. How is the story told?
B · Grammar and vocabulary
Write the missing word or words.
7. When he came in, she dancing. (be, background)
8. He in love with her the year before. (fall, earlier)
9. He his horse and rode away. (take)
10. He had been for five days. (ride, duration)
11. she was dancing, he was watching from the door.
12. In the , he rode back to El Paso.
C · Right or wrong?
Is the sentence correct English?
13. “When I arrived, they already left.”
14. “She was dancing when he came in.”
15. “He had been ride for days.”
16. “By the time he returned, it was too late.”
Talk and write
Discussion and writing
Retell. Tell the story of El Paso in your own words, using all four narrative tenses. Then tell it again from Feleena’s point of view.
Discuss. 1. Was the cowboy a hero or a fool? 2. Why do you think he came back? 3. Why are tragic stories so popular?
Write (150–180 words). A moment that changed everything. A short story, true or invented, about one moment of decision. Use the past continuous for the background, the past simple for the events, and the past perfect for what had happened before.
Now play the gamebook: Kleon, the tavern in Pelusium, and a different ending.Play the gamebook →