The post title is adapted from a line from the Woody Guthrie song "Pretty Boy Floyd" — lyrics here — which Dylan sang sometimes....
The song is about Pretty Boy Floyd, a bank robber who died in 1934, and Woody Guthrie died in 1967, so the song has nothing to do with George Floyd, despite the labeling on that video. The song portrays Pretty Boy Floyd as a thief who was generous to the poor.
Here's the actual lyric:
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.
For what it's worth: The FBI named Pretty Boy Floyd "Public Enemy #1" after they killed John Dillinger, who'd been "Public Enemy #1. Three months later, the FBI shot Pretty Boy Floyd to death. The new "Public Enemy #1" was Baby Face Nelson, and he lasted about a month after that.
The term "public enemy" goes back to Roman times:
The Senate declared emperor Nero a hostis publicus in AD 68....
The words "ennemi du peuple" were extensively used during the French revolution. On 25 December 1793, Robespierre stated: "The revolutionary government owes to the good citizen all the protection of the nation; it owes nothing to the Enemies of the People but death." The Law of 22 Prairial in 1794 extended the remit of the Revolutionary Tribunal to punish "enemies of the people," with some political crimes punishable by death, including "spreading false news to divide or trouble the people."
The modern use of the term was first popularized in April 1930 by Frank J. Loesch, then chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission, in an attempt to publicly denounce Al Capone and other organized crime gangsters....
The phrase was later appropriated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, who used it to describe various notorious fugitives they were pursuing throughout the 1930s. Unlike Loesch's use of the term, the FBI's "Public Enemies" were wanted criminals and fugitives who were already charged with crimes....
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17 comments:
Dirty Harry was a documentary.
I'm imagining a young employee at the publishing company, with an English degree from Bennington and living in Brooklyn with four roommates, trying to get Dylan to sit still and sign the damn books.
Why didn't he just include a NFT or some Bitcoin or another crypto item? They are also worthless, but the buyers wouldn't complain.
And others self-inflicted through illicit drug use (e.g. Fentanyl) and overdose that is representative of Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter in the modern model.
That said, this video reminds me of the cultural appropriation of Bush's song about a woman who wishes she could change places with her past viable male lover.
Saw Roger Mcguinn and Hillman do that with The Fabulous Superlatives. THEN, I saw Handsome Harry sing it at the Gram Parsons Guitar Pull. Man that was a cool three months or so.
It’s Dylan and it’s 2022. Everything costs a lot.
Some do it with mourning, insurrections, parades, and celebration still. His victims pushed to the back of the bus, thrown under the bus, in the woke of social progress.
Forgot to write, man is he great. The Greatest American Song and Dance Man!
So autopen is a no-no. How does Bob feel about autotune?
My first thought was "George Floyd died, like what, two years ago? And here's Dylan at 80 singing a song about him and he looks like he did 50 years ago? Incredible!" Then I read more and was enlightened.
At this point George Floyd is like Trayvon Martin or Princess Diana or any of the damn royals for me. I'm tired of the idolaters and tired of the maligners, and wish they'd all go away.
Everybody is out to screw you.
Most especially Democrats.
If they were advertised as 'replica autographs" i don't see much of a problem.
well, maybe reputation might get a bit tarnished, but whatever.
ted
The problem is the labeling of the video.
Dylan didn’t connect it to George Floyd as far as I can tell.
I don’t know the date of the performance, but it looks like decades ago.
George Floyd, the habitual criminal, addict and Democrat idol who died from an overdose of fetanyl? That George Floyd? He was a friend of Dylan? Really?
Pretty Boy Floyd by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana is a good book.
Woody Guthrie was NOT an "aw shucks" Okie. He was a middle-class guy from Oklahoma City, moved to LA the early 30s, and broke into Show Biz. Then ioined the Communist Party, moved to NYC, wrote for the Daily Worker and wrote a Song praising Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact in September 1939:
I see where Hitler is a talking peace
since Russia has met him face to face
he had just got his war machine a rollin’
coasting along and taking Poland
Stalin stepped in, took a big strip of Poland
and gave the lands back to the farmers.
a lot of little countries to Russia ran
to get away from the Hitler man
if I’d been living in Poland then-
I’d been glad Stalin stepped in
swap my rifle for a farm…trade my helmet for a sweetheart.
From Sept 39 to June 22, 1941, he was writing Peace songs, and calling FDR a warmonger. Then flipped on a dime, and started praising FDR for trying to get us into WW II and wrote songs like "Reuben James". Interesting his song "This land is your land" was written in response to God bless america by Irving Berlin. He hated that song and all the patriotism. Seems there are some rather bitter verses that got dropped from "THis land" and its not the cheery love america song people think it is.
"How does Bob feel about autotune?"
How would he know? He's never used it.
I would say that video is from the late 80s or early 90s......what does it have to do with George Floyd?
That Dylan video is from Oakland, CA, Dec. 4, 1988.
In 1988, George Floyd was just getting his career started as a low level thug.
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