Starting very high and falling in the half-tone steps he loved, the song showed clearly that Bob Nolan's thoughts were still on travel. "Vagabond", "vagrant" and "traveling" were words often used in his songs down through the years.
        In the words of Douglas B. "Ranger Doug" Green: “Although he quit touring in 1949 and quite recording in 1957, Bob Nolan never quit writing: in fact, he was writing—some songs, mostly poetry—right up until his unexpected death in 1980. His habit was to spend up to half the year in a little cabin he’d built at Big Bear Lake in the mountains of California, where he’d spend his time in solitude writing, thinking, dreaming, and creating.
        "Somehow—because, perhaps, he is such an avid and genuine fan of Nolan and the Pioneers—country/pop producer Snuff Garrett sweet-talked the famously reclusive Nolan out of his semi-hermit like retirement, and persuaded him to return to the recording studio for an album called The Sound of a Pioneer in 1979. It was a mixture of western tunes old and new—not all his by any means—but what piqued the interest of his longtime fans was the inclusion of three songs he’d written in those intervening years: new western classics, if you will, from the pen of the master.
        "Wandering is one of these, a stirring and moving Nolan composition with the classic touches: intriguing, poetic lyrics, clever inner rhyme schemes, and beautiful unexpected chord changes. His voice is higher than we remember, but still strong for a 70 year old man, and though the production behind him is a little large it does not, ultimately, detract from a sensitive and touching performance, a lovely final encore by a truly great performer.”


 

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