I erred when quoting this lyric in my post of [05 Aug 08 - 05:35 AM] ~ Louis shot "two," not "twice," rhyming with "through." My bad. So, we're not talking about different versions, after all.

The Mudcat search function is not operative for anythng posted since the Big Crash of I-forget-how-long-ago. I've read messages from other members advising us that you can use the "filter" instead of the "search" to find more recent messages in the forum, but I don't know what that is, where to find it, how to use it, etc.

But please take my word for it ~ there WAS a recent thread, active in July '08, about this song, and the most recent discussions were in regard to the "Louis" who "shot two": this was not (it was argued) the victim Louis Collins, but another Louis (or Lewis) joining Bob WIllis in the assault upon Mr. Collins.

To add a bit more that I forgot to mention last week, there is one school of thought that further identifies this second assailant as one "Louis Angel," which would give added meaning to the line "Angel(s) laid him away. (In the original recording from the 20s, MJH omits the "S" sound from "angel" the first time he sings the line ~ "Angel laid him away" ~ giving a bit of credence to this theory.)

Look: I'm pretty sure that I didn't imagine reading that thread last month, and indeed that I couldn't have dreampt up all that detail about "Louis Angel." That discussion has to be somewhewre in the archives, and quite recently. Could anyone possibly add it to the list of "realted threads" at the top of the page? I'm sure that it is a more thorough discusion of this subject than the three related threads currently listed, which each consist of relatively few messages.