Woody Guthrie

Pretty Boy Floyd

Woody Guthrie


Tom: E

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Come and gather 'round me, children, a story I will tell
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About Pretty Boy Floyd, the outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well.


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It was in the town of Shawnee on a Saturday afternoon,
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His wife beside him in the wagon, as into town they rode.

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There a deputy sheriff approached him in a manner rather rude,
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Using vulgar words of anger, and his wife, she overheard.


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Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain; the deputy grabbed his gun,
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And in the fight that followed he laid that deputy down.


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Then he took to the trees and timber to live a life of shame,
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Every crime in Oklahoma was added to his name.


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Yes, he took to the river bottom along the river shore,
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And Pretty Boy found a welcome at every farmer's door.


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The papers said that Pretty Boy had robbed a bank each day,
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While he was settling in some farmhouse, three hundred miles away.


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There's many a starving farmer the same old story told,
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How the outlaw paid their mortgage and saved their little home.


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Others tell you 'bout a stranger that come to beg a meal,
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And underneath his napkin left a thousand-dollar bill.


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It was in Oklahoma City, it was on a Christmas Day,
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There came a whole carload of groceries with a note to say:


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‘You say that I'm an outlaw, you say that I'm a thief,
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Here's a Christmas dinner for the families on relief.'


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Yes, as through this world I've rambled I've seen lots of funny men,
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Some will rob you with a six gun, and some with a fountain pen.


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But as through your life you'll travel, wherever you may roam,
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You won't never see no outlaw drive a family from their home.