The Story of Suicide Sal (1932)
Bonnie Parker
We each of us have a good alibi
For being down here in the joint;
But few of them really are justified
If you get right down to the point.
You've heard of a woman's glory
Being spent on a downright cur,
Still you can't always judge the story
As true, being told by her.
As long as I've stayed on the island,
And heard confidence tales from each gal,
Only one seemed interesting and truthful--
The story of Suicide Sal.
Now Sal was a gal of rare beauty,
Though her features were coarse and tough;
She never once faltered from duty
To play on the up and up.
Sal told me this tale on the evening
Before she was turned out free,
And I'll do my best to relate it
Just as she told it to me:
I was born on a ranch in Wyoming;
Not treated like Helen of Troy;
I was taught that rods were rulers
And ranked as a greasy cowboy.
Then I left my old home for the city
To play in its mad dizzy whirl,
Not knowing how little of pity
It holds for a country girl.
There I fell for the line of a henchman,
A professional killer from Chi;
I couldn't help loving him madly;
For him even now I would die.
One year we were desperately happy;
Our ill gotten gains we spent free;
I was taught the ways of the underworld;
Jack was just like a god to me.
I got on the FBA payroll
To get the inside lay of the job;
The bank was turning big money!
It looked like a cinch for the mob.
Eighty grand without even a rumble--
Jack was last with the loot in the door,
When the teller dead-aimed a revolver
From where they forced him to lie on the floor.
I knew I had only a moment--
He would surely get Jack as he ran;
So I staged a big fade out beside him
And knocked the forty-five out of his hand.
They rapped me down big at the station,
And informed me that I'd get the blame
For the dramatic stunt pulled on the teller
Looked to them too much like a game.
The police called it a frame-up,
Said it was an inside job,
But I steadily denied any knowledge
Or dealings with underworld mobs.
The gang hired a couple of lawyers,
The best fixers in any man's town,
But it takes more than lawyers and money
When Uncle Sam starts shaking you down.
I was charged as a scion of gangland
And tried for my wages of sin;
The dirty dozen found me guilty--
From five to fifty years in the pen.
I took the rap like good people,
And never one squawk did I make.
Jack dropped himself on the promise
That we make a sensational break.
Well, to shorten a sad lengthy story,
Five years have gone over my head
Without even so much as a letter--
At first I thought he was dead.
But not long ago I discovered
From a gal in the joint named Lyle,
That Jack and his moll had got over
And were living in true gangster style.
If he had returned to me sometime,
Though he hadn't a cent to give,
I'd forget all the hell that he's caused me,
And love him as long as I live.
But there's no chance of his ever coming,
For he and his moll have no fears
But that I will die in this prison,
Or flatten this fifty years.
Tomorrow I'll be on the outside
And I'll drop myself on it today:
I'll bump 'em if they give me the hot-squat
On this island out here in the bay...
The iron doors swung wide next morning
For a gruesome woman of waste,
Who at last had a chance to fix it.
Murder showed in her cynical face.
Not long ago I read in the paper
That a gal on the East Side got hot,
And when the smoke finally retreated,
Two of gangdom were found on the spot.
It related the colorful story
Of a jilted gangster gal.
Two days later, a sub-gun ended
The story of Suicide Sal.
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The End of the Road (1934)
Bonnie Parker
You've read the story of Jesse James--
Of how he lived and died;
If you're still in need
Of something to read
Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.
Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang.
I'm sure you all have read
How they rob and steal
And those who squeal
Are usually found dying or dead.
There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;
They're not so ruthless as that;
Their nature is raw;
They hate the law--
The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.
They call them cold-blooded killers;
They say they are heartless and mean;
But I say this with pride,
That I once knew Clyde
When he was honest and upright and clean.
But the laws fooled around,
Kept taking him down
And locking him up in a cell,
Till he said to me,
"I'll never be free,
So I'll meet a few of them in hell."
The road was so dimly lighted;
There were no highway signs to guide;
But they made up their minds
If all roads were blind,
They wouldn't give up till they died.
The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
Sometimes you can hardly see;
But it's fight, man to man,
And do all you can,
For they know they can never be free.
From heart-break some people have suffered;
From weariness some people have died;
But take it all in all,
Our troubles are small
Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.
If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
And they have no clue or guide;
If they can't find a fiend,
They just wipe their slate clean
And hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.
There's two crimes committed in America
Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
They had no hand
In the kidnap demand,
Nor the Kansas City Depot job.
A newsboy once said to his buddy:
"I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
In these awful hard times
We'd make a few dimes
If five or six cops would get bumped."
The police haven't got the report yet,
But Clyde called me up today;
He said, "Don't start any fights--
We aren't working nights--
We're joining the NRA."
From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
Is known as the Great Divide,
Where the women are kin,
And the men are men,
And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.
If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat,
About the third night
They're invited to fight
By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.
They don't think they're too smart or desperate,
They know that the law always wins;
They've been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.
Some day they'll go down together;
They'll bury them side by side;
To few it'll be grief--
To the law a relief--
But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
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Bye!