This week, since the John Henry book talked so much about songs as a form of document, I thought I’d investigate songs about Billy the Kid from around the end of the 20th century. There was an interested grouping of songs by people such as Tom Petty, Billy Joel, Charlie Daniels, and Billy Dean.
The Tom Petty song doesn’t actually have much to do with Billy the Kid. The speaker only compares himself to the outlaw in the chorus, saying:
“I went down hard
Like Billy the Kid
I went down hard
Yeah I got up again”
From this, it seems that Tom Petty viewed the Kid as a resilient character who was destined to fall. At the very least, it implies that Billy the Kid is very well known for his death. This song seems more like a result of the Kid’s legend rather than a propagator of it.
The Billy Joel song, “The Ballad of Billy the Kid”, sacrifices historical accuracy for a good story. It seems Joel had heard some vague stories about the Kid as an outlaw, and he expanded them into an orchestrated ballad. He makes mistake after mistake, claiming the Kid was born in West Virginia, traveled alone, robbed banks, never had a girlfriend, and ended up being hung in front of a large crowd. All these statements are far from the truth, but the musical score also tells a story. There are high energy string swirls and melodies that float around throughout the song, giving it a celebratory, almost triumphant feeling. These positive emotions are transferred from the music to the subject of the song.
Charlie Daniels takes a more historical approach, sticking to relatively established facts. He portrays the kid in a sympathetic light, talking about him as if he were just a poor boy growing up in a time when evil pervaded the land. The Kid is “a mile ahead of Garrett and a step outside of Hell” and apparently fated to fall. This is an classic approach, blending pity for the Kid with disgust at his deeds, that serves to highlight how far wrong this one boy has gone. The song ends on a cautionary note, saying “and I guess you’ll go down shootin and like all branded men/When you shake hands with the devil you get burned”.
Billy Dean, on the other hand, romanticizes the legend. The chorus is:
“I miss Billy the Kid!
The times that he had!
The life that he lived!
I guess he must’ve got caught,
His innocence lost…
I wonder where he is?
I miss Billy the Kid!”
The rest of the song chronicles the speaker’s desire to be free like the Kid was in his own childhood. He touches on the morality of the Kid, saying he doesn’t know which side of right and wrong to be on, but he ends up yearning for simpler times of the Wild West again.
I don’t really know what caused all these songs to be released around the same time. There was a mild resurgence in Western movies around this time, so I would guess that rapid changes to the world were causing a nostalgia for the ‘simpler times’ of the late 1800s. We already saw another resurgence in the late 50s, so perhaps as the Baby Boomer generation aged into roles of responsibility, they were anxious for the same characters that defined their childhood. These songs, no matter what the artists intended them to be, helped define Billy the Kid for their audience: the parents and teachers of future generations.
Billy Dean. “Billy the Kid.” Billy Dean. Chuck Howard, 1992.
Billy Joel. “The Ballad of Billy the Kid.” Piano Man. Michael Stewart. 1973.
Charlie Daniels. “Billy the Kid.” High Lonesome. Paul Hornsby. 1976.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “Billy the Kid.” Echo. Rick Rubin, Tom Petty, Mike Campbell. 1999.