As this group is about to vanish into the ether, I might as well ask... Is "The Belcastle Brand" (2:4) the first time we hear the lyrics to the theme song over the closing credits?
The lyrics are by Paul Francis Webster, who also wrote the lyrics for the Calamity Jane songs. (I assume he was a Warners employee.)
The following episode -- "High Hand Hangs" -- does not have the lyrics.
shareI believe they played a vocal version in episode 2:1 -- OK, according to Wikipedia's list of episodes (link below), 2:1 was "The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick," and yes they did sing it. But it was a different arrangement (with horsey clip-clop sounds) that I don't think they ever used again. We've watched several more episode now, and they keep changing their minds -- vocal in one ep, no vocal the next, different arrangement (no clip-clops), etc. I believe they finally settled down on one arrangement though, at least for quite a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Maverick_episodes