"My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" is the title of a song from the soundtrack to the 1979 film The Electric Horseman

The Electric Horseman

The Electric Horseman is a 1979 adventure and romance feature film starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda and directed by Sydney Pollack. It was the third time Redford and Fonda starred together in a feature film, having previously teamed on The Chase and Barefoot in the Park .-Plot:Sonny Steele ...

, and which was released as a single in 1980. It was his first release in the 1980s. "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" was written by Sharon Vaughn

Sharon Vaughn

Sharon Vaughn is a musician, songwriter and producer. She has had over two hundred cuts including several number one hits. She has also been nominated for The Nashville Songwriters Federation "Hall Of Fame". Vaughn was formerly married to songwriter Bill Rice, and later to Howard Bellamy of The...

 and performed by Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...

and would become his fifth number one on the country chart. The single stayed at number one for two weeks and spent a total of fourteen weeks on the country chart .

Content

The narrator contrasts the hero-worship that children devote to cowboys to his adult lonely reality of roaming and living out on the range, or in his case the road. The narrator has become his own hero, one he never quite expected. The cowboy the child aspired to be is not the cowboy the man has become.

Chart performance

Chart (1980)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	44
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	1
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks	3