The lyrics of the song, much like Williams' Family Tradition echo the sentiment that the outlaw singers and their current escapades were predated by the hard living honky-tonkers of the 1950s such as Hank Williams, Sr. and Ernest Tubb, prior to the music being fairly taken over by the Nashville Sound in the 1960s.
Critical reception
Reviewing Strong Stuff for Record magazine, Lee Ballinger dismissed "Leave Them Boys Alone" as the album's "obligatory song about other Southern musicians".[2]