Back about eighteen hundred and some
Louisiana couple had a red headed son
No name suited him, Jim, Jack or Joe
So they just called him Billy Bayou

Billy, Billy Bayou, watch where you go
You're walkin' on quicksand and walk slow
Billy, Billy Bayou, watch what you say
pretty girl'll get you one of these days

Billy was a boy kinda big for a size
Red hair and freckles and big blue eyes
Thirteen years from the day he was born
Billy fought the battle of the Little Big Horn

Billy, Billy Bayou, watch where you go
You're walkin' on quicksand and walk slow
Billy, Billy Bayou watch what you say
pretty girl'll get you one of these days

One sad day Billy cried, "Ho, ho
I can whip the feathers of Geronimo"
He smarted off, the chief got mad
That like, ended our Louisiana lad

Billy, Billy Bayou, watch where you go
You're walkin' on quicksand and walk slow
Billy, Billy Bayou, watch what you say
pretty girl'll get you one of these days

One day in 1878
pretty girl walked through Bill's front gate
He didn't know whether to stand there [bad word] He wound up married 'cause he did neither one

Billy, Billy Bayou, watch where you go
You're walkin' on quicksand and walk slow
Billy, Billy Bayou, watch what you say
pretty girl'll get you one of these days.

Songwriters
ROGER MILLER