The Ballad of Billy and Carrie Anne

Sweet Billy was a little slow,
but he loved Carrie Anne.
And Carrie Anne was slower still,
but Billy was her friend.

Oh Billy, sweet blue-eyed Billy,
Billy loved Carrie Anne.
Oh Billy, sweet blue-eyed Billy,
loved brown-eyed Carrie Anne.

Billy’s face was all pimpled full.
His teeth a crooked brown.
But Billy was a gentle soul.
Loved every child in town.

Carrie Anne’s hair was wheat gold blonde.
Her face was blemish free.
Her fairest skin was newborn soft.
As all the boys could see.

Two men with names of Jake and Jim,
came round to Carrie Anne.
Tried to take what she would not give,
to prove that they were men.

Billy stopped those men, Jake and Jim.
And could have hurt them bad.
Instead he let them run from him,
with all the hate they had.

Carrie Anne loved her sweet Billy.
Billy loved Carrie Anne.
And of that love a son was born.
He was their little man.

Little Billy was handsome bright.
His mother’s loving joy.
No fairer child of day or night,
than blue-eyed Billy boy.

Then Jake and Jim came round with hate.
Came round with hate again.
With loaded guns they lay in wait.
Murder would be their sin.

Jake and Jim killed blue-eyed Billy.
And both got time for life.
Carrie Anne lost blue-eyed Billy,
now brown-eyed widow wife.

Oh Billy, sweet blue-eyed Billy,
Billy loved Carrie Anne.
Oh Billy, sweet blue-eyed Billy,
loved brown-eyed Carrie Anne.

Now old heart brown-eyed Carrie Anne.
Long gone blue-eyed lover.
And her blue-eyed son grew a man,
each day mother’s treasure.

Love’s the moral of this story.
We all die, in the end.
Love is all of God and glory.
Love, love, and love again.

Oh Billy, sweet blue-eyed Billy,
Billy loves Carrie Anne.
Oh Billy, sweet blue-eyed Billy,
loves brown-eyed Carrie Anne.