On the Banks of the Old Ponchartrain is a song written by Hank Williams and Ramona Vincent.
According to biographer Colin Escott, Ramona Vincent, a crippled woman, wrote the words of the song as a poem and sent it to Williams, who put a melody to it.
[3] The song was paired with Fred Rose's novelty "Fly Trouble", resulting in perhaps the oddest single the singer ever released.
[4] Hank had scored his first Billboard hit with "Move It on Over" but "On the Banks of the Old Ponchartrain" bombed.
As Escott notes: The song tells the story of a criminal who escaped from a west Texas prison and stopped for a rest on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain where he falls in love with an unnamed woman only for him to be captured by a policeman and sent back to the prison he previously escaped from.