The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #24862 Message #873830
Posted By: Cluin
24-Jan-03 - 11:20 AM
Thread Name: Favorite Badman Ballads
Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
"The Slip Jigs and Reels" by Steve Tilston (also recorded by Fairport Convention, but I like ST's version better):
Well the called him The Kid, and by twenty-one
All that he knew was the power of the gun
And by twenty three, he'd shot five men down
Who'd got in his way as he rambled around
Another Tilston song, also covered by Fairport is "The Naked Highwayman". In that one, the young highwayman is seduced by one of his female victims who steals his clothes and pistols... not to turn him in as in "Whisky in the Jar", but to practice the trade herself. And she is much better at it than he.
There's another good "failed highwayman" song by James Gordon & Tamarack: "The Old Tweed Road".
And a little known ballad of frontier justice by Archie Fisher called "The Mountain Rain" In which an old man and his son ride down out of the mountains and into the town to settle up with a gambler that killed the eldest son.