The Smothers Brothers modernized and parodied this traditional song into a hymn to the consumer culture. The audience laughed, but the real joke probably went over most of their heads. In a world where your worth is judged by how you look and what you own, you can indeed be a cowboy (or anything else) just by purchasing the right accessories.
The Smothers' version goes:
As I walked out on the streets of Laredo,
As I walked out in Laredo one day,
I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay.
I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy;
I see by your outfit you are a cowboy, too;
We see by our outfits that we are both cowboys.
If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy, too.