B-side "Beware of the Dog" Format 7" Genre Rhythm and blues | Released February 1967 Recorded 1967 Length 3:03 | |
"The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" is a song recorded by the British rhythm and blues singer Georgie Fame. Released as a single, the song reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 24 January 1968, remaining for one week. The song reached number seven in the United States later the same year.
Song profile
The song was written by Mitch Murray and Peter Callander.
Fame recorded the song after seeing the (then) controversial release of the now considered classic gangster film Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty (as Clyde Barrow) and Faye Dunaway (as Bonnie Parker). The song, in the style of the 1920s and 1930s, features the sounds of gun battles, car chases, and police sirens, including the climactic gun battle that takes place when both Bonnie and Clyde meet their fate. The instrumentation of the song includes a piano, banjo, drums, trumpets, trombones, and a bass.
The song is geographically inaccurate in that in the first verse they meet in Savannah, Georgia. In reality, both were from East Texas and there is no evidence the couple ever ventured that far east.
Instrumental cover versions of the song were recorded by The Ventures (on their 1968 album Flights of Fantasy) and Andre Kostelanetz (on his 1968 album For the Young at Heart).