Woody Guthrie (1912 - 1967) was the most important American folk music artist of the first half of the 20th century. Coming out of Oklahoma, Guthrie had firsthand knowledge of the Dust Bowl diaspora chronicled in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. In fact, Guthrie wrote his own version of the story in a song called "Tom Joad." By the time he gained recognition in the '40s, Guthrie had written hundreds of songs, many of which remain folk standards to this day. He was also an author (Bound for Glory) and a newspaper columnist. Guthrie made some recordings for RCA in 1940, but much of his work was issued on the small Folkways label.
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Billy The Kid Lyrics
Woody Guthrie
Billy The Kid
I'll sing you a true song of Billy the Kid,
I'll sing of the desperate deeds that he did,
Way out in New Mexico, long long ago
When a man's only chance was his own 44.
When Billy the Kid was a very young lad
In the 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 first killed his man.
Fair Mexican maidens play guitars and sing
A song about Billy, the boy bandit king
How ere his young manhood had reached its sad end
He'd 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.
There are twenty-one men I have put bullets through
And 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.
Note: This song -- a pretty good one, I think -- is remembered
mainly because Woody Guthrie used the tune for the verse of So
Long, It's Been Good to Know You.
From Lomax-Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads
@cowboy @outlaw
filename[ BILLYKID
play.exe BILLYKID
RG
===DOCUMENT BOUNDARY