Woody Guthrie’s song about the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd begins with a story of Floyd getting into a fight. Floyd gets upset that a deputy used vulgar language in front of Floyd’s wife. After Floyd “laid that deputy down,” he fled to the country where every crime was blamed on him. But Guthrie did not write the song to sing about an unfortunate event. He wrote it as a critique of society, not of a man.
The Underlying Subject of “Pretty Boy Floyd”
The key part of the song regarding Guthrie’s message is near the end. Guthrie tells how Floyd helped strangers and gave money to struggling farmers.
The final verses are the most cutting and still relevant today in light of the worldwide financial problems and concerns raised by people such as within Occupy Wall Street. And the song’s final verse sums up much of Guthrie’s philosophy and his work.
But 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.
As Woody’s son Arlo Guthrie sings in this performance of his father’s song, “Some will rob you with a six gun / And some with a fountain pen.”
At another time, Woody Guthrie explained, “[Y]ou know — a policeman will jest stand there an let a banker rob a farmer, or a finance man rob a workin’ man. But if a farmer robs a banker — you would have a hole dern army of cops out a shooting at him. Robbery is a chapter in etiquette.” (Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life, p. 128)
Guthrie wrote “Pretty Boy Floyd” in March 1939, and many consider it among his finest songs. While it is not covered as often as some of Guthrie’s other songs, “Pretty Boy Floyd” has been played by Roger McGuinn, Kinky Friedman, Melanie (Safka), and others.
The Real Pretty Boy Floyd
When Guthrie wrote “Pretty Boy Floyd,” only five years had passed since Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd had died. The real Floyd was born on February 3, 1904. And he was first arrested at the age of 18 for stealing money from a post office.
FLoyd later graduated to bigger crimes in several states. He earned his nickname from the way a bank robbery witness described him. Although Floyd committed a number of crimes, Guthrie’s song correctly notes that Floyd probably was blamed for more than he did, including killings during a 1933 gunfight that became known as the “Kansas City Massacre.”
On October 22, 1934, as law enforcement officers pursued Floyd, he was killed in an apple orchard near East Liverpool, Ohio. Approximately 20,000 to 40,000 people attended Floyd’s funeral in Oklahoma.
Like all great folk songs, “Pretty Boy Floyd” has lived on as more than just a story about one person. And that is why we are celebrating Woody Guthrie.
{Woody at 100 is our continuing series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie in 1912. Check out our other posts on Guthrie too. }
What do you think of “Pretty Boy Floyd”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In 1940 after John Ford made John Steinbeck’s novel Grapes of Wrath into a popular film, Woody Guthrie was finding some fame while living with various friends in New York. In the biography Woody Guthrie: A Life, Joe Klein explained that as Victor Records worked to produce a set of Guthrie’s Dust Bowl ballads, the company asked Guthrie to write a song that would capitalize on Grapes of Wrath‘s popularity. (p. 163.)
It was a good fit to have the balladeer who had first-hand experience with the Dust Bowl write a song about a fictional character who experienced it. In the clip below, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott discusses the film.
Writing “Tom Joad”
So, Guthrie went to work on his song. One night Guthrie asked his friend the young Pete Seeger where he could get a typewriter to use to compose the song related to the film. Seeger took Guthrie to the lower East Side to see an artist friend with a typewriter.
Guthrie sat down at the machine with a half gallon of wine and began writing, periodically going to his guitar to test out what he was writing. When Seeger woke up the next morning, he found the song written on the typewriter next to an empty wine bottle and Guthrie passed out on the floor.
The seventeen-verse song summarized Tom Joad’s story. Despite the length, the record company recorded the entire song on May 3, 1940 in its New Jersey studios. Then, the record company had to use both sides of a record to get it to fit.
Guthrie was usually dissatisfied with his songs. But he was proud of this song, saying, “I think the ballad of the Joads is the best thing I’ve done so far.”
The Music from “John Hardy”
Guthrie took the music for “Tom Joad” from an outlaw ballad he had been playing, “John Hardy.” In the clip below, Roscoe Holcomb sings “John Hardy,” where you can hear the music behind Guthrie’s “Tom Joad.”
Holcomb, who grew up in Daisy, Kentucky, recorded a number of traditional songs in the 1960s after John Cohen and Smithsonian Folkways discovered the authentic voice in the Appalachian Mountains.
Guthrie’s Lyrics
While the music of “John Hardy” helped inspire Guthrie to write “Tom Joad,” Guthrie’s lyrics captured Steinbeck’s book and Henry Fonda’s portrayal of Joad in Ford’s film. At the end of all the book, the film, and the song, Tom Joad makes an impassioned speech to his mother. And Guthrie included that key scene in his lyrics.
Wherever little children are hungry and cry, Wherever people ain’t free. Wherever men are fightin’ for their rights, That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma. That’s where I’m a-gonna be.”
How “Tom Joad” Inspired Others
While several sources influenced Guthrie, he of course influenced others. In particular, “Tom Joad” influenced Bruce Springsteen making an album about troubled men and women.
Consistent with recent Springsteen comments that he found “fatalism tempered by a practical idealism” in Guthrie’s works, the title track of Springsteen’s The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) follows Guthrie’s song in capturing Joad’s conversation with his mom.
Now Tom said “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beatin’ a guy, Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries, Where there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air, Look for me mom I’ll be there; Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand, Or a decent job or a helpin’ hand, Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free, Look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.”
It is somewhat amazing that one conversation from Steinbeck’s book has resonated so much for other artists. But the words are timeless.
As long as there are economic inequalities, the words about fighting for the common people will resonate in society. Steinbeck’s version passed on to John Ford who then connected to Woody Guthrie who then connected to Bruce Springsteen. And the line will continue.
Already, Springsteen has passed the Joad mantle onto Tom Morello, who performed a Guthrie song during a May Day protest, and his band Rage Against the Machine.
We do not know who will take it next. But as long as somebody’s strugglin’ to be free, Joad’s words will be there.
Rage Against the Machine’s version of the Bruce Springsteen song sounds a long way from Woody Guthrie’s guitar. But I suspect that if Woody were around today and heard the song’s critique of society’s treatment of the poor, he would be on stage with them. “That’s where I’m a-gonna be.”
{Woody at 100 is our continuing series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie in 1912. Check out our other posts on Guthrie too. }
Although the Washington Post had called this Bruce Springsteen song “cartoonish,” to understand it as one of Springsteen’s greatest songs, one needs to look back to origins going back through Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Woody Guthrie, and Curtis Mayfield.
In 2012, Bruce Springsteen released his album Wrecking Ball (2012) to generally good reviews. Yet, the Washington Post claimed that one of the songs on the album, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” is like a “pose” full of “[c]artoonishly austere American cliches.”
Well, the Post is wrong about the song. Most of us first heard “Land of Hope and Dreams” when it was played during the 1999 reunion tour with the E Street Band. It later appeared in a live version on 2001’s Live in New York City and 2003’s Essential Bruce Springsteen before finally appearing in a studio version on Wrecking Ball in 2012.
Why would Springsteen release a studio version of a song more than ten years after it had already appeared on an album? Besides the fact that the prolific songwriter has been known to sit on songs for decades before release, the timing is perfect for this song for three reasons discussed in more detail below.
First, the new version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” is a beautiful tribute to the late Clarence Clemons. Second, the song brings a little hope to an album about hard times. Finally, the song is not a “pose;” it is one of Springsteen’s most beautiful songs, evoking Woody Guthrie and Curtis Mayfield while turning a classic folk song on its head.
(1) A Fitting Tribute to Clarence Clemons
First, the above new gospel version of the song from the new album is one of the final songs recorded with Clemons, so one may understand that it was important for Springsteen to include Clemons on the album. And because the song goes back to 1999 when Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band, it also evokes the connection among the band mates.
It was not surprising that when Dave Marsh wrote an essay memorializing Clarence Clemons that he entitled the article, “In the Land of Hope and Dreams.” Springsteen often has included references to the E Street Band members in his songs, ranging from “Tenth-Avenue Freeze-Out” to “The Last Carnival,” a tribute to deceased E Street Band member Danny Federici. Here, the placement of “Land of Hope and Dreams,” featuring Clemons’s sax solo, next to the final song on the regular album, “We Are Alive,” where Springsteen imagines his own death, connects the album to the Big Man and his sweet soul departed.
In The Guardian, Springsteen noted that when listening to the new album, “When the sax comes up on ‘Land of Hope and Dreams,’ it’s a lovely moment for me.” What a perfect tribute.
(2) A Song of Hope
Second, the album Wrecking Ball is Springsteen’s recession-era CD, and the song signals a way out of hard times. Springsteen’s last CD, Working on a Dream, came out during the recent recession, but it had been recorded during a period of hope as then Senator Barack Obama was running for president.
By the time Springsteen toured to support Working on a Dream (2009), the economy and the mood of the country had changed, leading to dissatisfaction and some despair. So Springsteen had to rework setlists from an originally upbeat theme to include more of his past songs about hard times. He even added Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More.” During that time, he apparently began thinking about this album, as during the tour he debuted this album’s title song, “Wrecking Ball.”
While there is a touch of sadness in almost every Springsteen song, including classics like “Thunder Road,” he often mixes dark and light. When he sings about despair and hopelessness, he is rarely hopeless. So, on an album about hard times, it is not surprising that he would signal to us that there is some hope: “Tomorrow there’ll be sunshine/ And all this darkness past.” As in the first single, “We Take Care of Our Own,” he embraces one of his common themes that hope lies in caring for each other.
(3) The American Songbook and Trains: “This Train”
Finally, we come to why “Land of Hope & Dreams,” one of Springsteen’s most optimistic songs, is also one of his greatest and not just a cartoon as the Washington Post claims. The song embraces much of the American songbook. With the song’s reference to “bells of freedom” it evokes the Bob Dylan song that inspired the name of this blog.
But, more prominently, “Land of Hope and Dreams” connects to the long tradition of songs about trains. This legacy travels from Robert Johnson, Jimmy Rodgers, and Hank Williams through songs like Cat Stevens’s “Peace Train.”
To understand “Land of Hope and Dreams,” though, we must begin with a classic folk song, “This Train,” which Springsteen has confessed helped inspire “Land of Hope and Dreams.” Big Bill Broonzy recorded the traditional song “This Train,” and the great Sister Rosetta Tharpe had a hit with “This Train” in 1939.
“This Train” goes back even further in time. Woody Guthrie adapted the traditional song as one about going to glory if you are good, because that train “Don’t carry nothing but the righteous and the holy.” The song specifically excludes gamblers, liars, smokers, con men, rustlers, side street walkers, wheeler dealers, and hustlers.
One may hear Guthrie’s version in this scene from Bound for Glory (1976), with David Carradine portraying Woody Guthrie.
It is interesting that Guthrie became associated with a righteous song, when the lyrics seem counter to many of his principles. Yet, one may also see it as attacking the con men of the establishment.
When Guthrie’s editor-agent proposed changing his autobiography’s title from Boomhchasers to Bound for Glory because of the book’s descriptions of Guthrie singing the song to homeless men, Guthrie initially balked. He was worried that readers would think he meant “Bound for Glory” to apply to himself. His understanding of the phrase from the song was that “the common people” are bound for glory. (Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life.)
“This Train” may be bound for glory, but many sinners have sung the song. Below is a performance by some of the early Sun Records rockers and admitted sinners, including Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison.
The song goes back even further in American history, as “This Train” was used by slaves to convey messages to each other on the Underground Railroad, with “glory” meaning “freedom.” Still, despite the history and inclusiveness attributed to the song, in the lyrics the train that is bound for glory limits its ridership to exclude sinners, however that term is defined.
Springsteen takes that limit and turns it on its head. As he has explained, “Land of Hope and Dreams” is a response to “This Train,” spreading a message of inclusiveness instead of a message of exclusion.
“People Get Ready”
In case anyone missed the message of “Land of Hope and Dreams,” on the new studio version one hears the Victorious Gospel Choir repeating the refrain from Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.” That song originally was a hit for the Impressions in 1955 (discussed in more detail in a previous Chimesfreedom post).
The gospel songs of Mayfield’s youth inspired him in writing “People Get Ready.” And in looking closer at the lyrics and hearing the song sung below by Alicia Keys, one may understand how the song inspired Springsteen either consciously or unconsciously in writing “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
People get ready there’s a train comin’; You don’t need no baggage, just get on board; All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’, You don’t need no ticket, just thank the Lord.
Mayfield did not specifically address the sinners of “This Train” in “People Get Ready.” But his song implied the sinners could still board the train as long as they had faith.
Climb On Board This Train
Springsteen, though, goes even further than Guthrie and Mayfield. His train has no requirements and calls everyone to board.
Springsteen does note that “faith will be rewarded.” Faith in what? God? Rock and roll? He does not say. And that is the beauty of the song. We are all saints and sinners and we are all welcome. Just have faith in something, even if it is each other.
Yes, Washington Post, the welcoming train in American music is an American cliche. But every decade or so it is good for us lost souls to be reminded that we all are on the same journey together.
This train Carries saints and sinners; This train Carries losers and winners; This Train Carries whores and gamblers; This Train Carries lost souls.
{This last video from a Springsteen performance at the Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut on May 8, 2000 is the E Street Band’s wonderful guitar-heavy version of the song that also appeared on 2001’s Live in New York City album. I love the opening riff of this earlier live version of the song, but I will reserve judgment for which version I prefer after numerous more listens of the newer gospel version.}
Do you prefer the new 2012 version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” at the beginning of this post or the 2001 live version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” at the end of the post? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Folksinger and songwriter Woody Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912 in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. In honor of his birthday, Chimesfreedom will consider some of the songs and life events of this man who looms large in both the American songbook and in our concepts of a period of American history.
Guthrie is a part of our past, but also our present and future, as his spirit lives on in many musicians, including the young disciple he met before he died, Bob Dylan. Guthrie’s songs reflect both the American spirit and the American struggles of his time, so it seems appropriate that we celebrate his life this year as the world has been struggling through economic hard times. But he is always relevant, as a large number of people suffer even when times are “good.”
“So Long It’s Been Good to Know You”
We start with one of Guthrie’s earliest songs, “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You.” According to Woody Guthrie: A Life, by Joe Klein, Guthrie wrote the song not long after dust storms hit Guthrie’s home in Pampa, Texas in spring 1935 (“In a month called April, a county called Gray”).
Out of the experience, Guthrie, who recently became a father, wrote the song. Originally, he called the song “Dusty Old Dust” and would sing in the local saloons.
Rob Tepper does this video of “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You” using his best Woody Guthrie imitation showing what a Woody Guthrie video might look like had they had videos back in Guthrie’s days. Tepper is a talented actor who does a one-man show portraying Woody Guthrie, and he appeared in the short film Been Good To Know Yuh – a Woody Guthrie Story. Check out his video of the song.
Inspirations for the Song
Guthrie took the melody for “Dusty Old Dust” from Carson Robison’s “Ballad of Billy the Kid.” But the chorus was Guthrie’s original work. Below is Marty Robbins singing “Ballad of Billy the Kid.”
When Guthrie wrote “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You,” Guthrie was still a young man in his early 20’s yet to do most of his travels. Despite his youth, his song shows a skill in using a happy-sounding song to express subtle anger.
Guthrie remembered local townspeople who raised prices to capitalize on the natural disaster. And he recalled the response of Preacher McKenzie, who “could not read a word of his text,/An’ he folded his specs, an’ he took up collection.”
Recordings
Years after Guthrie left Texas and ended up in New York City, he recorded the song for an album, Dust Bowl Ballads.
Later, Guthrie wrote another version of the song specifically about World War II. This other version included the lyrics, “So it won’t be long till the fascists are gone/ And all of their likes are finished and done.” Here is Guthrie singing the WWII version of the song.
As is the case with many of Guthrie’s songs, “So Long” seems like a tune I have known since birth. So I cannot remember when I first heard it. It just always was there.
Like many people, my introduction to “So Long” probably came through the Weavers, who polished up the song with some harmonies. The group, including Pete Seeger, also performed the song in a B-movie musical, Disc Jockey (1951).
So long, but only for now.
What’s your favorite version of “So Long”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
[Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Rob Tepper is the same Robert Tepper who sang the theme song from Rocky IV. Thanks to Julian Tepper for the correction.]
On May 25, 1911, a mob lynched an African-American woman and her teenage son near Okemah, Oklahoma. Through a direct family connection to the lynching, the acts that day would later inspire one of Woody Guthrie’s great songs.
Oklahoma Lynching
The lynching of the woman and her son occurred in response to the death of a well-respected white deputy sheriff, Goerge Loney. Earlier, Loney was investigating the theft of livestock when teenager Lawrence Nelson reportedly thought the officer was going for a gun and shot Loney. Loney bled to death.
A posse then went to arrest the teen and his family, which included his mother Laura Nelson and her infant son. Lawrence’s father ended up in jail too. But a mob eventually took the teenager and his mother Laura, who at one point tried to protect her son by saying she fired the fatal shot.
It is unclear what happened to the infant, but the mob ended up hanging the teen and his mother from a bridge. According to some reports, Laura Nelson was raped before she was lynched.
“Don’t Kill My Baby and My Son”
One of the members of the lynching crowd was a man named Charley. A year later, Charley would name his new son Woodrow after Pres. Wilson. Woodrow grew up to have quite a different view of the lynching than the participants. And Woody, as we would come to know him, developed political views that diverged from his father, Charley Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie wrote the song, “Don’t Kill My Baby and My Son” about that lynching in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. In the chorus, Woody chose to view the song from the standpoint of the woman who was lynched rather than choosing the voice of his father in the crowd:
O, don’t kill my baby and my son, O , don’t kill my baby and my son. You can stretch my neck on that old river bridge, But don’t kill my baby and my son.
Now, I’ve heard the cries of a panther, Now, I’ve heard the coyotes yell, But that long, lonesome cry shook the whole wide world And it come from the cell of the jail.
Singer-songwriter Brooke Harvey, who is from Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, recorded a beautiful rendition of Guthrie’s song:
Harvey’s version does not appear to be available outside of YouTube, and there are few people who have performed “Don’t Kill My Baby and Son.” Apparently, Guthrie himself never recorded the song.
But if you are looking for an album with the song, then Joel Rafael has a wonderful version of “Don’t Kill My Baby and Son” on his album, The Songs of Woody Guthrie Vol 1 & 2. Check it out.
Although “Don’t Kill My Baby and Son” is not one of Guthrie’s most well-known songs, it is among his most heartbreaking. Besides being a great song, it documents a horrible injustice that we should not forget.
More information about the lynching is in the biography Woody Guthrie: A Life, in a recent book on the history of capital punishment and the use of lynching, and on the Executed Today website, which includes the haunting photo of the lynching that was later used as a postcard.
Woody Guthrie’s song about the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd begins with a story of Floyd getting into a fight. Floyd gets upset that a deputy used vulgar language in front of Floyd’s wife. After Floyd “laid that deputy down,” he fled to the country where every crime was blamed on him. But Guthrie did not write the song to sing about an unfortunate event. He wrote it as a critique of society, not of a man.
, Joe Klein explained that as Victor Records worked to produce a set of Guthrie’s Dust Bowl ballads, the company asked Guthrie to write a song that would capitalize on Grapes of Wrath‘s popularity. (p. 163.)
, in a 
on the history of capital punishment and the use of lynching, and on the