This song is about a lady in California who wanders off into the ocean and drowns after she hears that her husband has been killed in a rodeo accident in Cheyenne, Wyoming. But the song, particularly this line, doesn't make any sense. Either she's walking the beaches of California, or she's doing something physically impossible, because last time I looked at a map, Cheyenne was the capital of Wyoming, which is a landlocked state. I love you, Garth, but I just don't understand this song.

I guess the writers of this song were trying to be metaphorical, but I don't really think you can call it a metaphor. It's a tragic song about about a man who gets killed competing in a bull riding contest at a rodeo in Cheyenne Wyoming. Meanwhile, his lover, the woman mentioned in the song is living somewhere on the coast of California. She was angry with him when he called her and told her he was competing one last time in a rodeo and she said some very hurtful things to him. When she's told he's been killed she's heartbroken with grief and guilt and goes and drowns herself in the ocean. People say they've seen her ghost and her footprints on the shore so therefore she's walking the "beaches of Cheyenne". But the problem with that is Cheyenne Wyoming is very far inland and hundreds of miles at least from the nearest coastline or beach. It's a good song that evokes sadness and tragedy, it's just too bad they phrased some of the lyrics in a way that when you stop and think about them don't really make sense.

Do I even need to mention why this is nonsensical? How can your heart be "hangin' out"? If it was, you couldn't be alive!