Stagger Lee

Miss Ella Scott Fisher

Stagalee

Compilation of American Ballads and Folk Songs — 1910

Stagger Lee in the Bill Curtis Saloon
Stagger Lee in the Bill Curtis Saloon

These are the first known lyrics for Stagger Lee.

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.

Stagalee

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!