Which Johnny Cash song was adapted from the traditional folk song “The Streets of Laredo”?

Johnny Cash recorded “The Streets of Laredo,” an adaptation of the traditional folk song of the same name.

The song belongs to the family of American cowboy ballads often traced to the nineteenth-century British-Irish song “The Unfortunate Lad.” Its narrative follows a dying or wounded cowboy and the person who encounters him, with lyrics changing across regional versions.

Cash recorded his version for the 1965 album Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West. That double album presented historical and traditional western material, reflecting Cash’s interest in American folk narratives as well as commercial country music.

The song is sometimes mixed up with “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” a Cash original about a young man and his mother’s warning. Both use western storytelling, but only “The Streets of Laredo” belongs to the traditional ballad family.