12 Hey Cisco

Originally inspired by the horrible reports that a Hollywood Studio had come down heavily on the guy who used to play the Lone Ranger on TV, I think his name was Clayton Moore. It turned out (if the reports were true) that he was being refused permission to open supermarkets because the studio owned the intellectual rights to the image/character or whatever. So this poor old guy had to hand back the mask and the guns and the hat etc. (the horse was dead) and could no longer pick up the couple of hundred bucks or however much he got for turning up in the nick of time to help him collar the black hats. Millions of awestruck kids (myself included) were led to believe that the good guys always won. Obviously not, as it turns out, but how were we innocents to know that. In an attempt to redress the balance this song was written.

The situation has been transferred in a process called artistic license, so it's not about the Lone Ranger, who was actually quite boring but another couple of heroes of the day; the altogether more devil-may-care and outrageously flamboyant Cisco Kid and his sidekick Pancho, (in total accord here - Steve) who were played by Duncan Renaldo and Leo Carillo respectively. However the message remains the same.