Billy was a bad man 
And carried a big gun,
He was always after Greasers 
And kept 'em on the run.

He shot one every morning
For to make his morning meal.
And let a white man sass him,
He was shore to feel his steel.

He kept folks in hot water, 
And he stole from many a stage,
And when he was full of liquor
He was always in a rage.

But one day he met a man 
Who was a whole lot badder 
and now he's dead 
and we ain't none the sadder.

View text with footnotes
Text can be found in Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads collected by John A. Lomax, M. A., 1918
⁷ Larsen adds:

He kept things boilin' over, 
he stayed out in the brush,
when he was full of dead eye, 
other folks'ld better hush.

⁸ Larsen: "Billy was a bad man, but"

Authorship:

• by Anonymous / Unidentified Author, "Billy the Kid", first published <<1918 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Libby Larsen (b. 1950), "Billy the Kid", from Three Cowboy Songs, no. 3. [
   text verified 1 time
  ]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2009-10-07
Line count: 16
Word count: 95