Hi, all.

This is intriguing. I am curently looking for the words of a version that I remember from the UK skiffle days, as sung by... (Damn! Another 'senior moment'). Anyway, this version went like:

"It was on Christmas morning,
The time was round about ten,
When Staggerlee shot Billy Lyons,
And landed in the Jefferson pen.

Billy Lyon's old woman,
She was a regular sinner,
She was home that Christmas morning,
Cooking Billy's dinner.

When a messenger boy came to the window,
And knocked upon the door,
He said your man is lying there,
Dead upon the bar-room floor..."

And that's about all I can (coherently) remember; there's more about appealing to the jury to "let Staggerlee go" because of his "poor old aged mammy..." and "Sherrif, oh, sherrif, I just can't sleep... Cos the ghost of Billy Lyons has found my head a place to weep..."

Is this familiar to anyone?

kbr