Level: 2
Tuning: Dropped D

Woody Guthrie based this song on a letter he received from a fan of his 1937 Los Angeles-based radio show. The listener included a newspaper clipping about a jealous cowboy who had killed a lawyer in Reno, in a fight over his girlfriend. Years later he sometimes performed the piece with Will Geer (who later became famous in TV's Little House On the Prairie) and Geer's wife Herta. The song is in 3/4 time, and during the accompaniment the thumb plays a bass note, followed by two down-strokes on the treble strings...with occasional fingerpicking flourishes thrown in. During the solo, the thumb plays three ascending notes (starting with the root bass note) while the fingers pick the melody.