Gay cowboys are this years new black.

Country music outlaw Willie Nelson sang "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" and "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" more than 25 years ago. He released a very different sort of cowboy anthem this Valentine's Day.

"Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)" may be the first gay cowboy song by a major recording artist. But it was written long before this year's Oscar-nominated
"Brokeback Mountain" made gay cowboys a hot topic.

Available exclusively through iTunes, the song features choppy Tex-Mex style guitar runs and Nelson's deadpan delivery of lines like, "What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?" and "Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out."

This gay cowboy theme is everywhere! Songs, dolls, sitcoms, this thing is out of control!

I keep thinking that if my father had lived to see this that this would have killed him! My dad believed that the cowboy lifestyle was the most masculine lifestyle of all. He was openly disdainful of my "hippie" haircut and and my liberal views on the world. My father once quit his job by putting Johnny Paychecks song "Take this job and shove it" on the phonograph player and then grabbing his stuff and walking out.

Hopefully where ever he is this is not causing him too much discomfort.

I would like to point out, however, that so far there is no movie about gay hippies.