Arlo Guthrie & Pete Seeger Follow

If you’ll gather ’round me, children, a story I will tell
’Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, the outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well

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

There a deputy sheriff approached them in a manner rather rude
Using vulgar words of language and his wife she overheard

Pretty Boy Floyd grabbed a long chain, and the deputy grabbed a gun
And in the fight that followed, he laid that deputy down

You know he took to the trees and timber and he lived a life of shame
Every crime in Oklahoma was added to his name

You know he took to the trees and timbers on the Canadian River shore
But the outlaw found a welcome at many a farmer’s door

You know there’s many a starvin’ farmer, yes the same old story told,
how the outlaw paid their mortgage, and saved that little home

And others tell you of a stranger who had come to beg a meal,
And underneath his napkin left a thousand-dollar bill

It was in Oklahoma City, yes, it was on a Christmas Day
A whole carload of groceries with a letter that did say

You say that I’m an outlaw, yes you say that I’m a thief,
Well, here’s a Christmas dinner for the families on relief

You know, as through this world I’ve rambled, I’ve seen lots of funny men,
Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen

But as through your life you ramble, yes and as through your life you roam
You won’t never see an outlaw drive a family from their home