Jerry Lee Lewis — The Ballad of Billy Joe

I'm the man they're gonna hang for killin' Billy Joe But there's a whole lot more to the story than they know Listen to my side of it and I think that you will see The reason that I killed the boy that made a fool of me There was a girl named Mary Anne And Mary Anne was all the world to me We planned to get married And we set the date the wedding was to be But I walked up to her house one night And out there on the front porch they sat And I swore they'd never get away with that Billy Joe took Mary Anne and went up to the dance hall one night They didn't know that I was standin' back there in the shadows out of sight They sat down at a table and she smiled as he gave her hand the pat And I swore they'd never get away with that I swore they would never get away with breakin' my heart I knew that that was just one way to keep them apart Everybody says his mother begged him not to take his guns to town He should have listened to her because she knew that I was gonna shoot him down I'll be hung tomorrow just because I had to kill that little rat But I swore that he'd never get away with that And Billy Joe didn't get away with that