The song is about a girl named Betty, asked by friends to confirm that she is dating Jimmy, the leader of a motorcycle gang. After singing of love at first sight ("I met him at the candy store/He turned around and smiled at me/You get the picture?/That's when I fell for the Leader of the Pack"), Betty's heart turns to despair as she bemoans her parents' disapproval. The parents claim Jimmy hails from "the wrong side of the tracks" and will be a bad influence on her. They ask Betty to tell Jimmy goodbye and find someone new.

Betty does as she is asked, and an upset Jimmy — after putting up his bravado — speeds off on his motorcycle. Moments later, Jimmy crashes on a rain-slickened surface and dies; Betty's pleas for Jimmy to slow down were in vain. In the end, Betty is left to deal with heartbreak but vows never to forget her fling with Jimmy, the "Leader of the Pack."

As told by George 'Shadow' Morton to Cecil Sharp in Ballads of the New World 'A Maid and a Widow I Be.'