Another song on Dust Bowl Ballads, “Pretty Boy Floyd” has one of Woody Guthrie’s most famous lines. Like the outlaw couple depicted in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd was a bank robber during the Depression era. While he was elevated to “Public Enemy No. 1” by the FBI following the shooting of John Dillinger, many see Floyd as a tragic figure who was a victim of his times.
“Pretty Boy Floyd” also highlighted the outlaw’s generosity, which was attributed to Bonnie and Clyde as well in the Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway movie. In part, the lyrics of this song are:
Yes, he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame;
Every crime in Oklahoma
Was added to his name.
But a many a starvin’ farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes.
Others tell you ’bout a stranger
That come to beg a meal,
Underneath his napkin
Left a thousand-dollar bill.
Sure, anyone could say that Woody Guthrie was romanticizing a criminal. But there is no denying the power of the closing verses as Woody Guthrie points his finger at a greater enemy:
Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won’t never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.
(March 2015)
