"Big Bad Bill" is a song with music by Milton Ager

Milton Ager

Milton Ager was an American composer.Ager was born in Chicago, Illinois, the sixth of nine children. Leaving school with only three years of formal high-school education, he taught himself to play the piano and embarked on a career as a musician. After spending time as an accompanist to silent...

 and lyrics by Jack Yellen

Jack Yellen

Jack Selig Yellen was an American lyricist and screenwriter.-Life and career:Born in Poland, Yellen emigrated with his family to the United States when he was five years old. The oldest of seven children, he was raised in Buffalo, New York and began writing songs in high school...

, written in 1924. The song became a vocal hit for Margaret Young

Margaret Young

Margaret Young was a popular singer and comedienne in the United States in the 1920s.-Recording career:...

 accompanied by Rube Bloom

Rube Bloom

Reuben Bloom was a Jewish American multi-faceted entertainer, and in addition to being a songwriter, pianist, arranger, band leader, recording artist, vocalist, and writer .During his career, he worked with many well-known performers, including Bix Beiderbecke, Joe Venuti, Ruth Etting,...

, and an instrumental hit for the Don Clark Orchestra. The song has also been recorded by Ernest Hare (1924), Bill Murray (1924), Clementine Smith (1924), Emmett Miller

Emmett Miller

Emmett Miller was an American minstrel show performer and recording artist known for his falsetto, yodel-like voice. Little-remembered today, Miller was a major influence on many country music singers, including Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Milton Brown, Tommy Duncan, and Merle Haggard...

 (1929), Glen Gray

Glen Gray

Glen Gray Knoblauch, better known as Glen Gray, was a jazz saxophonist and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra....

 & the Casa Loma Orchestra

Casa Loma Orchestra

The Casa Loma Orchestra was a popular American dance band active from 1927 to 1963. From 1929 until the rapid multiplication in the number of swing bands from 1935 on, the Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the top North American dance bands...

 (1940), Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...

 (1962), Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard

Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...

 (1973), Ry Cooder

Ry Cooder

Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...

 (1978), Leon Redbone

Leon Redbone

Leon Redbone is a singer and guitarist specializing in interpretations of early 20th-century music, including jazz and blues standards and Tin Pan Alley classics....

 (1978), Van Halen (1982)

Diver Down

Diver Down is the fifth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the US album charts and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the US.-Background:...

 and others and has been a popular song in barbershop quartet and chorus

Barbershop music

Barbershop vocal harmony, as codified during the barbershop revival era , is a style of a cappella, or unaccompanied vocal music characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture...

 competitions.

The lyrics describe a man "in the town of Louisville..." who was once a fearsome and rough character known for getting into fights, who, after getting married, becomes a peaceable person who devotes his time to domestic activities such as washing dishes and mopping the floor.

Recordings

• Sugar 'n' Spice
  Sugar 'N' Spice (Peggy Lee album)
  Sugar 'n' Spice is a 1962 album by Peggy Lee.-Track listing:LP side A#"Ain't That Love" - 1:59#"The Best is Yet to Come" - 3:19#"I Believe in You" - 2:45...
  
  (1962) Peggy Lee
• I Love Dixie Blues
  I Love Dixie Blues
  I Love Dixie Blues is a live album by American country singer Merle Haggard, released in 1973...
  
  (1973) Merle Haggard
• Balladtown USA presents 30 Years of Barbershop Harmony (1975) Various / The Lions Share
• Jazz
  Jazz (Ry Cooder album)
  Jazz is a 1978 recording by Ry Cooder, produced by Joseph Byrd and Ry Cooder and released on the Warner Bros. Records label.-Track listing:LP side A#"Big Bad Bill " – 3:34...
  
  (1978) Ry Cooder
• Champagne Charlie
  Champagne Charlie (Leon Redbone album)
  Champagne Charlie is the title of a recording by singer/guitarist Leon Redbone, released in 1978. It peaked at No. 163 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts.- Track listing :LP side A:# "Champagne Charlie" – 2:52...
  
  (1978) Leon Redbone
• Diver Down
  Diver Down
  Diver Down is the fifth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the US album charts and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the US.-Background:...
  
  (1982) Van Halen
• Bursting With Pride, Pride Of Baltimore Chorus
• 2009 International Barbershop Harmony Society Quartet Contest, Vol. 1 (2009) Various / The Harmonious Hunks

In film:

• Sung by Sam Amidon and Shahzad Ismaily during the credits of the 2009 documentary film
  Documentary film
  Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
  
   William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe.