Music Review // Petunia AndTheVipers "BILLY THE KID"

 

This song about "BILLY THE KID" is a true country song, as it has those ramblin' guitars and reminds me a bit of Johnny Cash.   There was a time when there was more country/folk songs that used to tell stories such as this, but they seem to be fading away.  Still, the fact that Petunia AndTheVipers have this song as a reflection of years past makes me happy because it's keeping a tradition alive.

While this music video is set in sepia tones it does show the story as the lyrics sing the song.  This is good for watching but at the same time the song itself paints enough of a picture so if you're not watching you can still create in your mind what is going on.  There are lines of both "And I'll shoot you down", as spoken by Billy The Kid, and "You're gonna hang by the neck, my son until you're dead dead dead", which is about him, but when you think of this as being about the Old West it was a violent place.

At one point during the video Billy The Kid is shown dancing with "his only love" and if you really listen to this story and think about it, the way it paints Billy The Kid is left for you to decide but it is not as a complete bad guy.   That question of is he a criminal or a hero is entertained within this song and I feel like sometimes history isn't always kind to everyone.  Perhaps what some see as being criminal was what Billy The Kid was just doing out of love, and so maybe he had that Robin Hood quality to him.

Either way, I'm happy that this song exists because at a certain point in time songs like this were the only way to pass down such knowledge from one generation to the next.   Petunia AndTheVipers also have a way of just drawing you in to hear the story, whether it's something which really interests you or not, and that's something a lot of high school history teachers simply cannot do.   So sit down, buckle up and take this ride.