This variation of Stagalee was collected February 9, 1910 from a Miss Ella Scott Fisher, San Angelo Texas and appears in a Compilation of American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934) by John and Allan Lomax. It was sung as a work song on the levees while loading and unloading the river freighters.

Stagalee (Variation)

"Twas a Christmas morning,
The hour was about ten,
When Stagalee shot Billy Lyons
And landed in the Jefferson pen.
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

Billy Lyons' old woman
She was a terrible sinner
She was home that Christmas mornin'
A-preparin' Billy's dinner.
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

Messenger boy came to the winder,
Then he knocked on the door
An' he said "Yer old man's a lyin' there
Dead on the barroom floor."
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

(Billy's Old Woman:)
"Stagalee, O Stagalee,
What have you gone and done?
You've gon and shot my husband
With a forty-four gatlin' gun?"
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

(Stagalee's Friend:)
"Stagalee, O Stagalee
Why don't you cut and run
For here comes the policeman
And I think he's got a gun."
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

(Policeman, a little scared of Stagalee:)
"Stagalee, O Stagalee
I'm 'restin' you just for fun
The officer jest wants you
To identify your gun."
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

(Stagalee in jail:)
"Jailer, O Jailer
I jest can't sleep
For the ghost of Billy Lyons
Round my bed does mourn and weep."
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

(Council for the Defense:)
"Gentlemen of this jury
You must let poor Stagalee go
His poor and aged mammy
Is lyin' very low."
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

(Counsel for the Prosecution:)
"Gentlemen of this jury
Wipe away your tears.
For Stagalee's aged mammy
Has been dead these 'leven years."
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!

Stagalee's old woman
She hung around the jail
And in three days she had him out
On a ten-thousand-dollar bail
O Lordy, po' Stagalee!