No one seems to have information or music on Billy (II), "Billy was a badman and carried a big gun...," in the Traditional Ballad Index. Fife and Fife indicate that they have no music, and say it is from Hendren 695. Fifes say that this is from "seven volumes from the private collection of Stella M. Hendren of Kooskia, Idaho." This was written in 1969. Where is this collection now?

Extracts are in the Austin and Alta Fife Fieldwork Collection, Utah State University Folk Archives.

This version was first added to a revised edition of Cowboy Songs, John A. Lomax (1917 edition?). In a note in the 1938 revised edition of "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads," where it is Version I, the Lomaxes state "Sent in 1911 to John B. Jones by Jim Marby, who inhabited a place near Tucson, Arizona, with Sam Niggertoe, his pet coyote, an animal Jim found a whole lot easier than any of his wives."

Is it about Billy Bonney or someone else? It doesn't mirror Billy the Kid-
-after Greasers- he associated with them.
-stole from many a stage- never done by Billy.
-full of liquor- Billy never drank to excess, according to interviews with people who knew him.
-Stayed out in the brush- Billy wasn't a loner, he stayed with someone even when on the run.
-Met a man who was a whole lot badder- His killing by Garrett was big news throughout the NM-AZ territories and beyond.

To me, it sounds like a ballad about a stage robber.
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The New Mexico State song, "O Fair New Mexico," was written by Pat Garrett's daughter. It is terrible! Guaranteed to empty a room.
"O fair New Mexico,
We love, we love you so;..."
(holds on O and fair)