Lee Shelton loved the smokey Missouri night and he loved the feel of a gun in his hand.
He drove his cab and pressed his girls into the night streets with a smile like a gun in his hand.

In the folds of sly Missouri alleys and old tar-roofed houses they called him Stagolee.
They scolded in red eyed murmurings, beware a man who spends life with a gun in his hand.

Billy Lyons was jealous of Stagolee and the fearful respect that people paid him.
Jealous no man told stories of him, that he could not hold fear like a gun in his hand.

Blues men wail about the night Billy met Stagolee in the dark of a Missouri bar.
How he took the hat from Stagolee’s head with great pride and a sneer like a gun in his hand.

Stagolee pointed slow his gun at Billy and shot him through the soft flesh of his belly.
Leaving Billy red and dying, Stagolee walked into a night like a gun in his hand.