Lyrics to
Machine Gun Kelly

This version of Machine Gun Kelly was released by James Taylor in 1971.

Our Decade Lyrics James Taylor profile has all of the Machine Gun Kelly lyrics from 1971 and many more songs from the James Taylor discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to James Taylor or about the 1970s in general.

I’ll tell you about Machine Gun Kelly he rode along the outlaw trail.
Machine Gun Kelly was a simple man but the woman was as hard as hell.
Watch out Machine Gun, don’t let her run you round.
Don’t let the woman put you six feet in the ground, Machine Gun.

I’ll tell you about Katherine Kelly, tired of being such small time, now.
Figured they’d kidnap a rich man’s son, make it in the world of crime.
Watch out Machine Gun, don’t let her run you round.
Don’t let the woman put you six feet in the ground, Machine Gun.

You’d better watch out Machine Gun Kelly, careful of what you do, now.
If you keep listening to your old lady, ain’t no telling what’ll happen to you, now,
Machine Gun.

The government boys they came for Machine Gun, took the poor boy away.
Stuck him in a hole in Leavenworth prison where he lived until his dying day.

Watch out Machine Gun, don’t let her put you down.
Don’t let a woman make you out to be a clown, Machine Gun.
Watch out Machine Gun.

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Want more lyrics and songs by James Taylor?

James Taylor has released many songs over the years besides Machine Gun Kelly. James Taylor released songs from 1968 to 2002 spanning across albums like James Taylor, Sweet Baby James, Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon, One Man Dog, Walking Man, Gorilla, In The Pocket, JT, Flag, Dad Loves His Work, That's Why I'm Here, Never Die Young, New Moon Shine, Hourglass, and October Road. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by James Taylor.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1971 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Machine Gun Kelly by James Taylor

When you decide to study the lyrics to Machine Gun Kelly, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1971 song by James Taylor. Some of the lyrics to Machine Gun Kelly have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only James Taylor and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Machine Gun Kelly if you take apart the structure of the words. 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 Machine Gun Kelly" means the words set to the music of Machine Gun Kelly, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by James Taylor. 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 Machine Gun Kelly and the lyrics to Machine Gun Kelly are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of James Taylor who came here looking just for the lyrics to Machine Gun Kelly, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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