"El Paso" is a western ballad written and originally recorded by Marty Robbins. It was released as a single on both the country and pop music charts, becoming the first No. 1 hit of the 1960s on both. It won the Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording in 1961. It is widely considered a genre classic for its gripping narrative which ends in the death of its protagonist, its shift from past to present tense, haunting harmonies and the eloquent and varied Spanish guitar that lends the recording a distinctive Tex-Mex feel. In 1998, the 1959 recording of "El Paso" on Columbia Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The song is a first-person narrative told by a cowboy in El Paso, Texas, in the days of the Wild West. The singer recalls how he frequented "Rosa's Cantina", where he became smitten with a young Mexican dancer named Feleena. When the singer notices another cowboy sharing a drink with "wicked Feleena", out of jealousy he challenges the newcomer to a gunfight. The singer kills the newcomer, then flees. In the act of escaping, the singer commits the additional hanging offense of horse theft. Departing the town, the singer hides out in the "badlands of New Mexico."
The song then fast-forwards to an undisclosed time later – the lyrics at this point change from past to present tense – when the singer describes the yearning for Feleena that drives him to return, without regard for his own life, to El Paso. He states that his "love is stronger than [his] fear of death." Upon arriving, the singer races for the cantina, but is chased and fatally wounded by a posse. Feleena rushes to his side, and he dies in her arms after "one little kiss".