Lyrics to
Billy The Kid

This version of Billy The Kid was released by The Charlie Daniels Band in 1976.

Our About The Charlie Daniels Band page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Billy The Kid from 1976 as well as all of the other lyrics from The Charlie Daniels Band that we have in our lyrics database.

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In the southern part of Texas, east and west of El Paso
Where the mighty Franklin Mountains guard the trail to Mexico
There’s a new-made widow crying and a hearse a-rollin’ slow
I guess the devil’s passed this way again.

There’s a lathered sorrel stallion running through the Joshua trees
And a young man in the saddle with his coat tails in the breeze.
He’s got a six gun on his right hip and a rifle at his knees
And he’s dealing in a game that he can’t win.

Poor Billy Bonney, you’re only 21,
Pat Garrett’s got your name on every bullet in his gun.
Every notch you carve on your six gun
Has a bloody tale to tell.
You’re a mile ahead of Garrett and a step outside of Hell.

Those fancy clothes you’re wearin’ and the women in your bed
Can’t take away the traces of the men that you’ve left dead
As you ride across the badlands with a price upon your head
And now the Wheel of Fortune starts to turn.

Your reputation’s grown ’til it’s the biggest in the land
And there ain’t a lot of people left who want to call your hand
And I guess you’ll go down shootin’ and like all branded men
When you shake hands with the devil you get burned.

Poor Billy Bonney, you’re only 21,
Pat Garrett’s got your name on every bullet in his gun.
Every notch you carve on your six gun
Has a bloody tale to tell.
You’re a mile ahead of Garrett and a step outside of Hell.

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The Charlie Daniels Band has released many songs over the years besides Billy The Kid. The Charlie Daniels Band released songs from 1971 to 2002 spanning across albums like Charlie Daniels, Fire On The Mountain, Nightrider, High Lonesome, Saddle Tramp, Midnight Wind, Million Mile Reflections, Full Moon, Homesick Heroes, Fiddle Fire - 25 Years Of The Charlie Daniels Band, Road Dogs, and Redneck Fiddlin' Man. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Charlie Daniels Band.

If you're a fan of the music of the 1970s looking for more songs from 1976 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Billy The Kid by The Charlie Daniels Band

The lyrics to Billy The Kid are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that The Charlie Daniels Band used when the song was created in 1976. The lyrics to Billy The Kid have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only The Charlie Daniels Band and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to Billy The Kid by The Charlie Daniels Band. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Billy The Kid" means the words set to the music of Billy The Kid, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Charlie Daniels Band. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Billy The Kid and the lyrics to Billy The Kid are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Charlie Daniels Band who came here looking just for the lyrics to Billy The Kid, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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