My favourite recording of the song:

Billy The Kid
Vernon Dalhart

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 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 there he killed his first man

Fair Mexican maidens play guitars and sing
A song about Billy, their boy bandit king
How ere his young manhood had reached its sad end
Had 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 the face fine and fair
Who starts out in life with a chance to be square
But just like poor Billy he wanders astray
And looses his life in the very same way