Ballad Of Billy Joe - Tom Jones

I’m the man their gonna hang for killing Billy Joe

But there’s a whole lot more to the story than they know

Listen to my side of it and I think that you will see

The reason that I killed the boy that made a fool of me

There was a girl named Mary Anne

And Mary Anne meant all the world to me

We planned to get married

We set the date the wedding was to be

But I walked up to her house one night

And out there on the front porch they sat

And then I swore he’d never get away with that

Billy Joe took Mary Anne and went up to the dance hall one night

They didn’t know that I was standing back there in the shadows out of sight

They sat down at a table and she smiled as he gave her hand the pat

And then I swore he’d never get away with that

I swore he’d never get away with breaking my heart

I knew that there was just one way to keep them apart

Everybody says his mother begged him

Not to take his guns to town

He should have listened to her

She knew that I was gonna shoot him down

I’ll be hung tomorrow just because I had to kill that little rat

But I swore he’d never get away with that

And Billy Joe didn’t get away with that