Text: Tex Ritter. Other. Billy The Kid.

I'll sing you a true song of Billy the Kid
I'll sing of the desperate deeds that he did
Out in New Mexico long time ago
When a man's only chance was his own forty-four

When Billy the Kid was a very young lad
In old Silver City he went to the bad
Way out in the West with a gun in his hand
At the age of twelve years, he killed his first man

Fair Mexican maidens play guitars and sing
A song about Billy, their boy bandit king
Who ere his young man-hood had reached its sad end
Had a notch on his pistol for twenty-one men

'Twas on the same night, when poor Billy died
He said to his friends, 'I am not satisfied
Twenty-one men I have put bullets through
Sheriff Pat Garrett must make twenty-two'

Now this is how Billy the Kid met his fate
The bright moon was shining, the hour was late
Shot down by Pat Garrett, who once was his friend
The young outlaw's life had now come to its end

There's many a man with a face fine and fair
Who starts out in life with a chance to be square
But just like poor Billy, he wanders astray
And loses his life in the very same way