The John Dillinger Song

The John Dillinger Song

The Death of John Dillinger, this print is on sale of Tony Stewart's website

Tony Stewart, one of Dillinger's most eminent biographers and incidentally related to the late John Dillinger, has asked my to include the following link, for allowing me use this beautiful print recreating Dillinger's death scene outside the Biograpph Theatre, on Lincoln Avenue, Chicago.

About five years ago I read the James Carlos Blake novel called 'Handsome Harry' - it was all about the John Dillinger gang of 1933-4.

Firstly it filled me up with incredulity and amazement at the astonishing exploits of these men. I scoured the web for details and happened upon Lori Hyde's sites about Harry Pierpont and John Dillinger. Not long after that I came across Bryan Burroughs book, 'Public Enemies' about the same sequence of events.

And then it inspired the song you are hearing now - 'St Peter and John Dillinger'.

A coupe of nights after writing the lyrics, I showed them to my friend and fellow songwriter - Jack Hudson. I can remember saying to him - 'No one else is writing songs like I am, Jack. That would tell some people that they were doing it wrong. All it tells me that I have found my voice - and I stand by this song as a work of great imagination.'

Basically the song recognises that men like Harry Pierpont and John Dillinger were strong willed, independent, loyal - and much that we admire. However because of their brutal treatment in the American penal system - they evolved into something that could not be contained in society and had to be destroyed.

the song poses the question - if men like Pierpont and Dillinger do not fit into this life - how will they fare in the next?

The character of St Peter in the song is based upon the character depicted by Walter Houston in The Treasure of Sierra Madre'.

After I wrote the song, I was so proud of it that made it the title track of my album and sent it to John Dillinger's hometown of Mooresville, Indiana. Also i sent it to various Chicago radio stations - after all Chicago gets tourists every year going on bus tours of where the Dillinger gang hid out, and many make pilgrimage to the Biograph Cinema, outside which Dillinger was gunned down.

However no one ever wrote back. So I figured i had made yet another major mistake. Perhaps I should have hid the track where no one else will ever hear it again.

The next thing I find out - quite by accident is that they are making a film of the Bryan Burroughs book, with Johnny Depp starring as Dillinger. It is to be called 'Public Enemies' and is due to be released July 2009 and they are filming now.

St Peter and John Dillinger

Spoken Preamble:

It was a hot July night, 1934.....

When the gates of Paradise suddenly flung open,

And there..... standing before his maker,

Was the famous American bank robber and outlaw....... Jo-ohn Dillinger.

Only a few minutes before

John Dillinger had been walking down a Chicago

alleyway.

Down off Lincoln Avenue

When he had been ambushed

Shot to death by Federal agents

Now from his poor broken body -

Rose the immortal soul of John Herbert Dillinger

Transfigured and radiant,

Clothed in heavenly rainment,

But still carrying a tommy gun -

And looking like-a one mean dude.....

Hoosier? asked St Peter

John Dillinger said, that’s me

I’m from Mooresville, Indiana

In the land of the brave and free

Old Man, look down from these lofty clouds

To shy town, Illinois

You’ll see ‘kerchiefs dipped in my life blood

Such a blessed man was I

Hoosier? asked St Peter

Dillinger said, it’s what you heard me say

I’m from Mooresville, Indiana

In the good old US of A

And if you kneel down for forgiveness

I might forgive you all God’s sins

All those years in America

When the working man couldn’t win

St Peter said, You tryin’ to pull somethin’ Johnnie Dillinger,

pretendin’ that you’re some kind of saint

You know it takes one of those to know one,

cos I’m one and you sure ain’t

Well hold it, said Johnnie I was surrounded by enemies like our Lord,

Oh shot down and left to die,

By J Edgar Hoover’s dirty dogs, the men they call the FBI

Well time don’t mean a deal round here Johnny, said St Peter,

Fact is, J Edgar Hoovers already here

I gave a him a job. just yesterday, as an angel - look! he’s dancing on a cloud over there.

Seeing as you know him so well...... you could be a sort of double act, right?

Two Johns dancing on a cloud together, just spreading pure sweetness and light

Yeh,dancing on a cloud with J Edgar Hoover, jest spreading pure sweetness and light

You made J Edgar Hoover an angel, now you shoulda seen John Dillinger’s

dis-tress

St Peter said, hey man...you know I couldn’t stop him.....!

Got real excited when he was tryin’ on the dress

Round here you’d be like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, put on a te-rrific show

You’ll have an eternity to practice.... that’s when Dillinger thundered No!

He said, Hey!

I’m Dillinger the Bank Robber, and I don’t like to brag

But its not my idea of heaven, up on a cloud with some old fag

And you can’t make me, but St Peter said, I think you’ll find I can

And who said anything about heaven for you, you naughty naughty man.

So brothers and sisters now listen and pay the good book mind

Damnation comes in lots of ways, and shapes and forms and kinds

Don’t rob banks, or fire tommy guns from the running board of a car

Or you could end up like Poor Johnny Dillinger dancing with your bête noire

Hoosier? asked St Peter

John Dillinger said, that’s me

I’m from Mooresville, Indiana

In the land of the brave and free

But if you look down from these lofty clouds

To shy town, Illinois

You’ll see ‘kerchiefs dipped in my life blood

Such a blessed man was I