Don't Take Your Guns to Town Lyrics
(Johnny Cash)
© '58 Anne Rachel Music, ASCAP
A young cowboy named Billy Joe grew restless on the farm
A boy filled with wanderlust, who really meant no harm
He changed his clothes and shined his boots and combed his dark hair down
And his mother cried as he walked out
Refrain:
Don't take your guns to town, Son Leave your guns at home, Bill
Don't take your guns to town
He laughed and kissed his mom and said, your Billy Joe's a man
I can shoot as quick and straight as anybody can
But I wouldn't shoot, without a cause, I'd gun nobody down
But she cried again as he rode away
Refrain:
He sang a song as on he rode, his guns hung at his hips
He rode into a cattle town, a smile upon his lips
He stopped and walked into a bar and laid his money down
And his mother's words echoed again
Refrain:
He drank his first strong liquor then to calm his shaking hand
And tried to tell himself, at last, he had become a man
A dusty cowpoke at his side began to laugh him down
And his mother's words echoed again
Refrain:-Solo-
Bill was raged and Billy Joe reached for his gun to draw
But the stranger drew his gun and fired before he even saw
As Billy Joe fell to the floor, the crowd all gathered 'round
And they wondered at his final words
Refrain:
Spoken:
Thank you - well... I mean the fact that ah... the fact that I got the tune from an old Irish folk-song, is really not the story, the song is... - well, no, I didn't notice anything Irish about it, that is strictly Irish, you know - ha - ha - ha - you know, the fast raw craze was goin' around back in the late fifties, there was gun smoke and a... , - ah, you remember when the Sullivan of that sort come out - yeah, Sullivan - I was there - ah... , Sally - the sacred feuds is a foreword, that thing - I used to stand in front the TV and tried out to trod into my nest - ha - ha - ha - ha - ha - grown man, you know - ha - ha - ha - yeah, in my twenties, hm - hm - hm - it's hard to be - it's hard to be, it's on video tape, it's really hard to be, yeah - what is - why - , I was down in the Houston area, like in the late fifties and to Nashville in the late part of fifty-nine, but I was down a-workin' in a club and on the way back and forth to a club, which is all the way across Houston, it's a long way, so I write a song, that is my writing-time, so I wrote three songs in one week, down there...
