Lloyd Price – Stagger Lee lyrics

The meaning (to me) of this song and its many variations is that folk-music singers love murder ballads and that they can change any story by misremembering lines or by confusing the details from other songs they know. Eventually the story resembles a stereotyped universal version.
This song is about a real murder. Lee Shelton (Stagger Lee, Stacker Lee, Stag-o-Lee, etc.) was a pimp, a gambler, a flashy dresser, a leader of a "social club" of toughs, and a political organizer of Democrats in 1895 St. Louis. Billy Lyons was an organizer for the Republicans. Were they friendly with each other? Possibly, but according to the newspaper account and the trial transcript, they were drunk in Bill Curtis's saloon and the bar room "discussion" got physical. "Shelton had first crushed Lyons' Derby hat, after which Lyons grabbed Shelton's hat and demanded restitution; Shelton then drew his gun and smacked Lyons on the head with it. Lyons lunged for Shelton and Shelton shot him" in the stomach, retrieved his hat and left the bar. Billy died a few days later and Stag was arrested, tried, found guilty of murder and sent to prison. He was pardoned after 12 years but committed another crime, went back to prison and died there in 1912 of tuberculosis.
This murder story and its outrageous characters appealed to the public and songs were written, and morphed and changed into many forms. One version had the victim named something else and the JUDGE was named Billy Lyons. One had him sentenced to death and executed, where he went to Hell and was such a badass that he defeated Satan and took over. Sometimes the quarrel was over gambling, sometimes over a woman, or something else, but usually the Stetson hat played a part. In one, sung to the tune of Frankie and Johnny, It's essentially the "He done her wrong" story told with the men named Stagger Lee and Billy.