With the economy the way it is, plenty of businesses have gone under. But when news came down yesterday that Western Warehouse and Boot Town are going out of business, the first thing I thought of was likely the first thought a lot of you had: There goes one of the most memorable, stick-in-your brain jingles North Texas has ever heard.

If you’ve lived in the area for more than 10 years, I have no doubt you can sing the following:

“I got a ranch in downtown Dallas/I buy diamonds by the ton/Chase cuties in my Cadillac/Drill oil wells just for fun/But when it comes to boots, I need a deal/That will fit me right, toe to heel/So I get my boots at — Western Warehouse.”

The song was fun, catchy and enduring — everything a good jingle should be. And I always thought it was a little satirical, playing off the world’s image of the Dallas of J.R. Ewing. We all laughed at the thought of “a ranch in downtown Dallas,” but I always wondered if the same people who thought everyone here rode their horses to work were in on the joke.

There comes a point with some jingles when they actually become bigger than the business that they are advertising. They’re just out there as part of the pop culture, taking on an existence all their own. At that point, have they been elevated to something other than advertising?

I’m not ready to call the Western Warehouse jingle a work of art. But it is safe to say that it became part of the fabric of our city — something you’d put in the Dallas time capsule of the 1980s and 90s. In closing the stores, the company will hold the usual going-out-of-business sales through the holidays. And a part of me hopes I’ll turn on the radio and hear that jingle a few more times before it’s gone for good.