The Kid's Last Fight was a song written by Bob Merrill

Bob Merrill

Bob Merrill was an American songwriter, theatrical composer, lyricist, and screenwriter.Merrill was born Henry Merrill Levan in Atlantic City, New Jersey and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Following a stint with the Army during World War II, he moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a...

 and first recorded by Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...

 in the early 1950s at Columbia Records. The recording by Laine reached #20 on the Billboard charts

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

.The song was eventually covered by The Statler Brothers for their 10th Anniversary album, released in 1980 on Mercury Records.

The song tells the story of a young fighter, Kid McCoy, fighting against Tiger Wilson. He hopes to win enough prize money to buy a bungalow for him and his darling Bess. The Kid is fighting while battling a fever and although he knocks out Tiger Wilson, the song says "Twas the fever that won the fight".

The song starts with a pianola

Player piano

A player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...

sound like that used on silent movies.