Robbins wrote this in a car as he and his family were traveling through Texas on the way to Arizona. The song is a Western saga complete with drama, violence, and romance. The singer falls in love with a Mexican girl named Faleena, but when he sees her with another man, he shoots the guy, killing him. He steals a horse and makes his escape, but love compels him to return to the scene of the crime, where he is met with a bullet to the chest.
At 4:40, this song was exceptionally long by pop standards. Columbia Records bucked convention and in October 1959 released it as a single at that length anyway. The decision paid off when the song topped the Hot 100 in the first week of 1960, marking the first time a song longer than four minutes hit #1 on that tally (it was also a #1 country hit). "El Paso" was over a minute longer than any other #1 on the Hot 100 that year - "Georgia On My Mind" by Ray Charles was the second-longest at 3:37.
This song won the first Grammy ever awarded in the category Best Country & Western Performance.
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