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Pretty Boy Floyd
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When you take a look at the folk songs out there to be found, you will be very hard-pressed to find a song praising a banker, but it's easy to find songs praising the virtues of a bank robber.
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"If the great Phil Ochs were to rise from the dead today, he would probably be hailed as the new David Rovics." Andy Kershaw, BBC
Song Info
Genre
Acoustic • Acoustic Folk
Peak in subgenre #246
Author
Sung by David Rovics
Rights
Written by Woody Guthrie
Uploaded
June 14, 2005
Track Files
MP3
MP3 7.0 MB • 128 kbps • 0:00
Story behind the song
When you take a look at the folk songs out there to be found, you will be very hard-pressed to find a song praising a banker, but it's easy to find songs praising the virtues of a bank robber. During the early years of the Great Depression, Pretty Boy Floyd was legendary as an enforcer of poetic justice, robbing the banks that were taking the farms away from the farmers, and then giving the money to those very farmers, so that they might pay their mortgages.
Lyrics
by Woody Guthrie If you'll gather 'round me people A story I will tell Of Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw Oklahoma knew him well It was in the town of Shawnee Saturday afternoon His wife beside him in his wagon It was into town they rode There a deputy sheriff approached him In a manner rather rude Using vulgar words of language And his wife she overheard Pretty Boy grabbed a logchain And the deputy grabbed his gun And in the fight that followed He laid that deputy down There's many a starving farmer The same old story told How an outlaw paid their mortgage And saved their little home Some will tell you of a stranger Who came to beg a meal And underneath his napkin Left a thousand-dollar bill It was in Oklahoma City It was on a Christmas Day There came a whole carload of groceries With a letter that did say "You tell me I'm an outlaw "You tell me I'm a thief "Well, here's a Christmas dinner "For the families on relief" As through this world I've traveled I've seen lots of funny men Some will rob you with a six-gun Some with a fountain pen But as through this world you ramble And as through this world you roam You'll never see an outlaw Drive a family from their home
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