Lyrics and Legends; 12; Outlaw Ballads

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do a little bit more of this, I'm going to do a little bit more of this, I'm going to do a little bit more of this, I'm going to do, a little bit more of this, I'm going to do a little bit more of this, I'm going When you mention the name Robin Hood, most people automatically think of the outlaw tradition. And this is, of course, because Robin Hood has become a kind of symbol for the outlaw in Anglo -American culture. But the whole outlaw of business is older than Robin Hood, and actually it's a worldwide situation or motif in which man after man has been put into the same general life pattern formula that Robin Hood has lived or is supposed to have lived. I mean, this would be true of Heraclio Bernal and Mexico. It would be true of other medieval robbers who came even before Robin Hood.

It's true of Brennan on the more. It's true of Wild Jack Donahue. It's true of Dick Turpin, Jesse James Billy, the kid Sam Bass. I mean, you can read these names off almost indefinitely. The whole thing is sort of baffling because the people involved here are sadist, there are psychopathic, some of them subnormal. People that you'd be scared to death of if you met them when they were on the loose. And in fact, people who do scare you when they are on the loose. But the minute they're captured or the minute that they're killed or executed, then a wave of sympathy sweeps over you for the person and you begin immediately to find yourself putting the person into the Robin Hood formula. Now, the subject of this show, of course, is that Robin Hood formula or the outlaw formula. And we have set up a sort of rogue's gallery of American folk song here with some of the figures that we're going to be talking about and we're going to sing some of the songs that have been written about these men and talk about the legends that are associated with them. I don't think

there's any legend that explains the whole thing to you better, perhaps, than the one that's grown up around Pretty Boy Floyd and which has been put almost complete into Woody Guthrie's song called Pretty Boy Floyd. Pretty Boy Floyd, of course, was a public enemy number one who lived in Oklahoma and terrorized the Southwest during the 30s. But he became a champion in that area of the people, or at least the people thought he was a champion. And Woody Guthrie used to say that if anybody said anything bad against Pretty Boy down where he came from, they'd be hit by something and it wouldn't be no train. In this particular song of Pretty Boy Floyd, Pretty Boy comes into Shawnee, Oklahoma one afternoon with his wife. And the sheriff there, Deputy Sheriff, says something rather rude that his wife over hears. And so Pretty Boy grabs up a log chain and takes a swing at the sheriff who has a gun

and kills him. So Pretty Boy has to go off and become an outlaw. And when he becomes an outlaw, he does all his robbing from the rich. He gives the money to the poor and he spreads the wealth around. He generally is a good guy. And at the end of the song Woody Guthrie says, as through this world you wander and through this world you roam, you won't never see an outlaw drive a family from his home. Oh, Pretty Boy here demonstrates the formula. The man who's driven into crime, the man who robs from the rich and gives to the poor, and the man who's really a kind, courteous fellow and shouldn't be a robber after all. And maybe if you look at a picture of Pretty Boy Floyd, you might feel that way about him. If

you'll gather around me children, our story, I will tell them in a few minutes. About 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 the wagon, as in the town he rode. By a deputy sheriff approached him in a manner rather rude, speaking vulgar words a language, and his wife she overheard. So Pretty Boy grabbed a lock chain, and the deputy grabbed a gun, and in the fight that followed. He laid that deputy down. He took to the trees and timbers. He lived a life of shame, every crime in Oklahoma was added to his name. But there's many a starving farmer, the same old story told. I was outlawed, paid their mortgage,

to save their little home. It was in Oklahoma City, and it was on Christmas Day. Came a carload full of groceries, with a letter that did save. Now you say that I'm an outlaw, you say that I'm a thief. Well, here's a Christmas dinner, or the family is all hungry. Now is through this world I ramble, I see lots of funny men. Some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen. But is through my life I travel, as through my life I roam. I never saw an outlaw, drive a family for all of their home. There's no question that pretty

boy was a colorful figure. And a certain number of legends have accumulated around him. And he liked to talk to his friends, supposedly, when he robbed banks. And he's supposed to have tied the new body of a girl to the bumper of his car, and then used that for target practice. But I've never really considered him a folk figure. He's not an outlaw figure, such as Jesse James or Billy the Kid, who grew up in the 19th century and took their place in American folk tradition. And we want to talk a little about Billy the Kid and Jesse James, the rest of the outlaws. And we have Fred Turner of Hariford College here. Fred's a leading authority on all of this material. You're writing a book on it, aren't you Fred? I am, trust, but I must confess I've missed that anecdote about Pretty Boy Flood. I don't have to get it in there somewhere. Well, your book won't get banned in Boston without it, Fred. That's always good for settled. But Fred, you need a thesis as well as sex in a book these days until... Well, happily, trust this book does contain a thesis. And that thesis is that the outlaw stereotype grows out of a fertile soil, which propagates the legend. The fertile soil, in most cases of the outlaws that you've mentioned,

is the conflict of interest between minority groups and society as a whole, or maybe a burning public issue, which catches the popular imagination. You mean like capital punishment with carol chessmanship? That's right. And we can carry this all the way through from the 19th century on down, starting with Jesse James. The issue there being the conflict between North and South and the Civil War, going on to be able to kill it, it was the small Mexican ranchers, versus the large American cattlemen. And in the 20th century, Pretty Boy Flood stood for the small farmers and their war against the banks. And then as you mentioned, Carole Chelson, with the issue of capital punishment. Well, I suppose if the bank held a mortgage in your farm was about to foreclose, you didn't feel too bad when the bank was knocked off. Well, it used to be said that people were serious, but very well at night when Jesse was knocking you over the banks. You know, and they supposedly slept well in the 1930s when the guns were in. Yeah. Well, let's go back to Billy the Kid because that issue of the Mexican farmer and the bigger cattle

ranchers is an interesting one. Yes, it is. And this is the genesis of most of the sympathy around us for Billy the Kid because he's supposed to be the champion of the Mexicans in their fight to keep their land grants. And the large American cattlemen were trying to take these away. This is supposedly why Billy the Kid entered into the Lincoln County War to fight for the Mexican rights. Well, I know that Billy was supposed to have killed one man for each year of his life and he lived to be 21. And the thing I never could understand is he's a champion of the Mexicans but he didn't count Mexicans and Indians in his tally. And that means he didn't even consider Mexicans to be human. Well, this illustrates two very interesting facets of the outlaw stereotypes. The first one that you mentioned is the idea of the 21 killings. Probably one out of 10 ,000 people wouldn't know anything about the actual facts of Billy the Kid's life but they probably all wouldn't know that he killed a man for each year in his life. And secondly, we know that the outlaw along with his deeds of daring always carries an

idea of his mission in life and so that he's very particular about how many people he's killed and who these people are. And then I know there is an Nordic supremacy in the early western material and I suppose that's carried over. Yes, there's always an attempt to make the character a Nordic hero. But as you can see by looking at a picture of Billy, he certainly doesn't fit the idea of the strong man. Those are the most incredible shoulders I've ever seen of these necessary for gunslinger. Well, actually Billy was not too much of a gunslinger. He liked to kill from ambush and his favorite trick was to tamper with a gun of his opponent so that there wasn't much chance for the opponent to kill him. No quick draw then. Not too much of that. Well, his name was William Barney. Well, that again is rather vague. Attempts have been made to prove that he was born in New York City and so forth. But there are no birth records there to support that. And coincidentally, his birth date as it's usually given is that of his first biographer, which makes us suspicious. And also you might mention the fact that Billy's name probably really wasn't Bonnie originally. It

was McCarty and then Antrim and where Bonnie came from, no one knows. Are you implying that he was not a legitimate child? Well, Billy's mother may have known who Billy's father was, but I'm not sure that Billy himself did. And the biographers don't be sure. I think they're pretty confused too. Well, now he was shot from ambush by Pat Garrett and Pat wrote a biography of Billy after he did this. Well, yes. This is always the end of the outlaw story. He's usually shot down from ambush and betrayed by a member of his gang. The implication of the floak draw from this is that if their hero had had a chance, he would have emerged triumphant. And the reason that Pat Garrett wrote the book was to justify his killing of Billy and make it appear that it was justifiable. Well, you know, we've tied Woody Guthrie in with the Pretty Boy Floyd song. And he sort of ties in with this too because he took the tune of Billy the Kid and wrote so long it's been good to know you to that tune. And then that song actually got up on the hit parade back in the 1950s. I'll sing you a true

song about Billy the Kid. I'll sing of the desperate deeds that he did, weighed down in New Mexico long, long ago where a man's only friend was his own 44. When Billy the Kid was a very young lad in all silversity, he went to the bed, weighed out in the West with a gun in his hand at the age of 12 years. He killed his first man. Bare Mexican maidens play guitar and sing about Billy the Kid, the boy bandit king, aired his young manhood had reached 21 for 20 men dead, he'd a notch on his gun. It was all the same night that Billy he died. He said to his friends, I'm not satisfied there's 21

men. I have what bullets through and sheriff Pat Garrett will make 22. A pale moon was shining, the hour it was late, on the night that poor Billy the Kid met his fate. Shot by Pat Garrett, that once was his friend, the young of lost life now came to an end. There's many a lad with a face fine and clear, starts out in life with a chance to be square, just like poor Billy he wanders astray and he loses his life in the very same way. I always enjoy hearing you sing, but I've been trying to

think how I'm going to introduce you, and you've been in so many things I don't know quite what to say. I know you're an author, you've written the ballad mongers recently, and you've been in more kinds of television and radio business. Well, just introduce me then as a fellow from Canada from Winnipeg, who started to sing folk songs like most kids when he was about five years old, and has been singing him all his life, I think that would be the way. Well, I know wherever songs he's sung the name, Oscar Brand comes up. A funny thing has happened though, Triss, for years I just sang songs because I enjoyed the singing of them, and then of recent years as I've been involved with motion pictures, or television and radio popular songs, I've gotten interested in what makes the song, like some of these banded songs, for instance, what brings them together, what makes them similar to each other, and I've gotten some interesting conclusions about them. There is a pattern that goes through that you've probably noticed too. Well, we've been working that actually in this show, the idea of the formula. I mean, you take something like this mortgage story, which is told about Jesse James, and Davey Lewis, and Pennsylvania, it's told

about Dick Turpin in England. Anywhere there's an outlet, you may hit it. Oh, yes, you mean the story where there's always a poor old widow lady, a very sweet poor old widow lady, because there are no mean widow ladies in folk literature. Now, let's say the other character is the mean nasty grasping landlord. There are no nice landlords in the folk literature. And he has to have his money for the mortgage immediately. Now, of course, the money changes. Sometimes it's as little as $25 in one of our poor states, like Georgia, or Arkansas, or sometimes a lot of money, $50, $100. Well, anyway, he's about to come, and the lady is weeping and crying when there's a knock on her door, and two strangers come in asking her for something eaten. Of course, she gives them everything she has, and then keeps weeping, and they ask her why, and she tells them the whole terrible story about the mean landlord and the money, and they say, don't worry. Don't worry. And they reach into that pocket and pull out a sheet of bills and give her whatever she needs, and then say, but don't forget to get a receipt from that landlord, and

she says, all right, and she's so happy. And then, of course, the landlord comes, and he's annoyed because he didn't want that money. He wanted to make her miserable, but he takes the money, signs the receipt, and goes away in half a mile, a mile, out of the house. Two masked strangers come along, hold them up, take the money away from him, and go riding off. And, of course, I learned it originally. It was one of the Jesse Jones legends. Well, there are others very similar to that. The outlaw joins the posse and goes out searching for himself, really, in favor. And then there's the courteous outlaw. It's a pleasure to be robbed by him. He only robs the men on a train, for example, or he's robbing this young girl, and she starts to cry when he takes her engagement ring off, and he sees that and puts it back on. There is one song in which the people who wrote it try to conform to the pattern, even though the facts are so obviously opposed to it. You know that the rich man is always the bad. One of the poor man is always the hero.

This is the song of Jim Fisk, which I love. It comes from up in New York State. At least that's where I learned it. Now, everybody knows it's in the history books. The Jim Fisk was an extremely wealthy man. And they say he even precipitated the Black Friday panic on Wall Street by his speculations. But he was killed by a poor man, a ruined speculator named Stokes, who was a part of his at one time. So here's the classic pattern completely turned around. The rich man killed by the poor man. They both were going out with the same girl. That was one of the reasons. And the poor man was trying to blackmail the rich man he wouldn't pay. Well, the song, because they tried so hard to make it conform to the old pattern, makes a hero out of the man who was killed. And makes a villain out of the poor man. And they call the poor man the representative of the rich. And the rich man, the representative of the poor. And that's gone a long way to get the song that we call Jim Fisk. If you listen the while, I'll sing you a song Out this glorious line of

the three. And the difference I'll show to mix the rich and the poor In the trial by jury you see. If you plenty of money, you can hold up your head And go forth from your own cottage door. But if you have none, they'll hang you up high That the rich go and string up the poor. I'll sing all the man who's now in his grave. A better man never was born. Jim Fisk was his name and his money he gave To the outcasts the poor and forlorn. Well, we all know he loved both women and wine But his heart was a good one, I'm sure. Though he lived like a prince and a harvest so fine, He never went back on the poor. Tell me what do you think

of this trial of stokes Who murdered this friend of the poor. Now he has gone free, is there anyone safe To walk from his own cottage door? Tell me, is there one more rich folks And another far the poor? It seems so whatever they say. I say let the poor hang, but be sure that the rich Get the string in the very same way. I'll ask her when a motion rules history. I guess even a robber baron can become an outlaw. That's true. And of course most of these songs, they try to fit to the pattern That is that the poor man was forced into banditry by the authorities, for instance. Well, you know that the Robinhood of America, Jesse James, Actually was forced into being an outlaw. I don't think he remained a nice guy throughout his career. I think he became a sadist, but he had a good reason for becoming an outlaw. Well, and Jesse James was a young man. Actually, he was a quiet, simple

fellow. But then his brother, Frank James, and later himself, Went along with Cantrell's Raiders, who at the time, as you know, Were opposed to these people coming down from the North And trying to get Kansas and Missouri to become slave states. Yeah, bleeding Kansas. Yes, bleeding Kansas. Well, what happened was when they learned that this family was involved with Cantrell, They didn't ask any questions. They came in and they really harried that poor family. In fact, I believe that they strung up the stepfather of the James boys. But the broke broke so he was cut loose. Yeah, well the news didn't take, actually. So he wasn't really hung and they'd tied Jesse to a stake and whipped him And then they'd taken his sister and mother and put them in jail. That's right. And of course, that's the standard story, which is usually made up about the band. And here it was true. They had actually troubled and bothered and hurt and insulted his mother. So naturally it was necessary for Jesse James and his brother, Frank, to go out and become bandits. And it's so funny that this real story of American life conforms to the pattern, Which has been true since the singing of American ballads and British ballads as

well. I've heard so many songs, so many versions of the James story. And one of my favorites happens to be the one that most people know. The one that tells about how he changed his name to Howard, which is true. And was hiding out when one of the members of his own band, the fellow named Ford, shot him while he was dusting off a picture on the wall. Jesse James was a lad who killed many a man. He never liked to see him suffer pain. He robbed from the rich to give to the poor. He'd a hand, he'd a heart, he'd a brain. And Jesse had a wife tomorrow in all her life. Three children, they were brave. It was a dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard and laid poor Jesse in his grave. Night was on a Wednesday night when the moon was shining bright. They held up the Chicago train. And the people they did say for

many miles away, it's the outlaws Frank and Jesse James. Yes, Jesse had a wife tomorrow in all her life. Three children and they were brave. It was a dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard and laid poor Jesse in his grave. Night was on a Sunday night. Jesse was at home, sitting with his family brave. Robert Ford's pistol ball tumble Jesse from the wall. And laid poor Jesse in his grave. Yes, it was Robert Ford, the dirty little coward. I wonder how he must feel. For he ate of Jesse's bread and he slept in Jesse's bed. And laid poor Jesse in his grave. And Jesse had a wife tomorrow for his life. Three children, they were brave. It was a dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard and laid Jesse James in his grave. The cause of Robin Hood or Jesse James or

pretty boy Floyd is a long way from us today. And it's hard to feel what it was like to be a member of the Confederacy after the Civil War or to be a farmer hating the banks in the 1930s. In order to bring the point of this show home to you, I've got to find a cause that you feel strongly about and a criminal who was involved in that cause. And I think Carol Chessman serves our purposes very well. Carol Chessman was a resourceful and unrepentant criminal who was clearly guilty of the crimes for which he was finally executed. He of course became a symbol, though, for the people who hated capital punishment. And the people who hated capital punishment reacted to Chessman's execution in exactly the same way that their ancestors had reacted to the lives of Robin Hood and of Jesse James. When you listen to someone like Shell Kagan singing Bill McAdoo's Ballad of Carol Chessman, you realize that the outlaw formula is still with us and that it's not likely to die as

long as people feel emotional about causes and as long as they can find criminals to identify with those causes. Carl Chessman was a prisoner in a caliphate yourself. They called in the red light bandit and they doomed this soul to hell. Go down, you murder, go down. For twelve long years he stood his ground and he stood it like a light. He said, I'm innocent of this crime, my life is in your hands. Go down, you murderers, go down. His last appeal, it was turned down. I'll never forget the day. In the spring of 1960 they stole his life away. Go down, you murderers, go down. In France they used the guillotine in England and it's a rope. For

Chessman it was a cyanide tank which silenced his last appeal. Go down, you murderers, go down. We've lost its raw man in jail and lost it taking life but not to end the miseries. They drive a man to crime. Go down, you murderers, go down. If you're rich you can mind sell the law, you can make an effort to do. But a poor man has a devil's chance where money is the rule. Go down, you murderers, go down. Carol Chessman went to the cyanide tank and what I say is true. The law it was the murder that Judge Henry II, go down, you murderers, go down. Go down, you murderers, go

down. Go down, you murderers, go down. This is NET, National Educational Television.