Album: From One Good American To Another

Pretty Boy Floyd

(Woody Guthrie)
Gather round me children, a story I will tell
About Pretty Boy Floyd, the outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well.
¡®Twas in the town of Shawnee on a Saturday afternoon
With his wife beside him in a wagon it was into town they rode.
Well, a deputy sheriff called him in a manner rather rude
Using vulgar words of language and his wife she overheard.
Well, Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain, the deputy grabbed his gun
And in the fight that followed, he laid that deputy down.
He took to the woods and timbers, he lived a life of shame,
Every crime in Oklahoma they laid on to his name.
He took to the river boaters long the North Canadian river shore
And many a starving farmer he opened up his door.
They tell about a stranger, the same story goes
How Pretty Boy paid their mortgage and he saved their little home.
Others tell about a stranger who came to beg a meal
And underneath his napkin, he left a thousand dollar bill.
Into Oklahoma City, it was on a Christmas day
Come a whole wagonload full of groceries and a note on which did say:
¡°You say that I¡¯m an outlaw, you say that I¡¯m a thief,
Well, here¡¯s a Christmas dinner for your families on relief.¡±
Through this world I¡¯ve rambled, I¡¯ve seen many funny men,
Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen.
But as through your lives you travel, boys, as through your lives you roam
You won¡¯t never see no outlaw drive a family from their home.