Tag: Death Penalty

The Journey of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” From the Scaffold to the Screen

Hang Me Inside Llewyn Davis opens with one of the film’s best musical moments.  The camera simply focuses on the title character, played by Oscar Isaac, singing “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” at the Gaslight Cafe. Isaac’s performance of the song is mesmerizing.  He immediately draws the viewer into the time and setting of the movie.

Hang me, Oh hang me, and I’ll be dead and gone;
Hang me, Oh hang me, I’ll be dead and gone;
Wouldn’t mind the hangin’, but the layin’ in the grave so long;
Poor boy, I been all around this world.

The song stayed with me long after the movie ended.  One might argue that no other performance in the film matches it. Check out Isaac’s opening performance from Inside Llewyn Davis.

Versions and Sources of “Hang Me”

The movie performance made me curious to find out more about the song. The Coen Brothers movie is loosely based on the life of Dave Van Ronk. So the obvious first step for anyone interested in the film is to check out Van Ronk’s version of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me.”

Van Ronk’s version is a wonderful recording and worth tracking down. Van Ronk’s ex-wife Terri Thai wrote in The Village Voice that one of the best things about the movie is that it will lead people to check out Van Ronk’s music.

You may find Van Ronk’s version of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” on the CD Inside Dave Van Ronk. Check it out below.

Van Ronk did not write the song.  If you look for further information, many places just list it as “traditional.” The song “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me,” however, has a long history that takes a number of twists and turns.

There are different variations on the song with different titles.  These title variations include “I’ve Been All Around This World,” “The Gambler,” “My Father Was a Gambler,” and “The New Railroad.”  Sometimes, the song is called “Cape Girardeau,” from the song’s line “I been all around Cape Girardeau.” Another version specifies the location of the singer’s last stand in  “Up On The Blue Ridge Mountains.”

The Grateful Dead used the variation “I’ve Been All Around This World.”  The band sang the song in a 1980 New Year’s Eve performance at the Oakland Auditorium.

A Grateful Dead fansite notes that the origin of the song is somewhat unclear. The first commercial recorded version of the song appears to be a 1946 single by Grandpa Jones, who later starred on Hee-Haw. But the song goes back further to a 1937 Library of Congress field recording.

A trip to the Library of Congress website leads to information about this first known recordings of the song. One early version of “I’ve Been All Around This World” (AFS 1531) is by Justis Begley. Alan and Elizabeth Lomax recorded Begley singing the song at Hazard, Kentucky in October 1937.

The Library of Congress lists another version of the song supposedly “sung” by a person named Dr. David McIntosh with a recording date of May from the same year, although I have yet to find more information about that version.  McIntosh seems to have been a collector of folk songs, authoring books called Folk Songs and Singing Games of the Illinois Ozarks and Singing Games and Dances (1957). (Thanks to Elijah Wald in the comments for pointing me to the McIntosh listing.)

Interestingly, Begley, the man who made the other 1937 recording of this song about a man about to be hanged, served as the sheriff of Hazard. You may hear another Sheriff Begley recording on YouTube, “Run Banjo.”

Begley’s version of “I’ve Been All Around This World” is below courtesy of archive.org and thanks to Stephen Winick at the American Folklife Center for the link. At the end of the song, you can hear the legendary folklorist Alan Lomax referring to Begley as the “composer” of the song.


The line “hang me” probably derived from the American ballad “My Father Was a Gambler.” That song is about an unnamed murderer who was hanged in the 1870s. Like many other versions, the narrator in “My Father Was a Gambler” claims he has been all around the world as he states, “hang me, oh hang me, I’ll be dead and gone.”

Below is a YouTube video of someone playing “My Father Was a Gambler.” The song title reflects a paternal gambler theme also found in “House of the Rising Sun” (“My father was a gamblin’ man / Down in New Orleans.”).  A gambling father also appears in the Allman Brothers’ song “Ramblin’ Man” (“My father was a gambler down in Georgia”).

What Hanged Man Inspired the Song?

Unfortunately, sources do not disclose the name of the condemned man or men who inspired the various versions of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me.” The book Outlaw Ballads, Legends & Lore (1996) by Wayne Erbsen claims that the song was inspired by a man hanged in Fort Smith, Arkansas.  Some versions of the song mention that location.

Apparently the hanged man’s name has been lost to history.  But the book claims that the execution occurred sometime during the decade of the 1870s.  The author notes that the famous hanging judge Judge Isaac Charles Parker might have pronounced the sentence because he served as judge at that location during 1875-1896.

One may speculate further about the person who inspired “My Father Was a Gambler” and the “hang me” lyric. Examining a list of people executed in the Arkansas, one finds a large number of men hanged for murder in Arkansas in the 1870s. Most were black men or Native Americans (also illustrating the discriminatory way the death penalty is used).

If we try to narrow down the time period, the famous execution may have occurred sometime during 1873-1876.  During that period, executions at Fort Smith were open to the general public. For these public executions, thousands of people could hear the condemned person’s last words.

But even if we narrow down the song’s inspiration to the years of public executions, it is still challenging to determine the name of the condemned man who inspired the “hang me” lyrics. For example, one may guess that the song could be about Sidney Wallace. As something of a folk hero, Wallace and his execution may have captured people’s imagination.

Or maybe the song is about Daniel Evans.  He had connections in Missouri, which might have inspired the song’s reference to Cape Girardeau.  Evans also joked about his execution, which might have made it memorable to a potential songwriter.

Or maybe the song is about either William Leach or William Whittington.  Both of those men gave final speeches to a crowd blaming their vices and discussing their reform. Further, Leach’s lingering 10-minute hanging may have prompted extra attention. (See Roger Harold Tuller, “Let No Guilty Man Escape”: A Judicial Biography of “Hanging Judge” Isaac C. Parker.)

Deep Dark Woods

A good guess is that John Childers may be the inspiration for the song because of his final request to be hanged.  Childers spoke for sixteen minutes on the scaffold in 1873.  Then his request came after the marshal made him an offer.

The marshal explained that he would spare Childers if the condemned man would reveal the names of his accomplices. Following his own code of honor not to rat on others, Childers swept his hand and asked, “Didn’t you say you were going to hang me?” After the marshal answered in the affirmative, Childers replied, “Then, why in hell don’t you!”

The Childers execution continued to attract attention after Childer’s death.  Some claimed that Childers escaped.  Others claimed that after Childer’s body fell through the trap, a bolt of lightening from a storm cloud struck the scaffold.

But we may only guess how much of the song we know today is based in fact. For example, singers may have added the gambling reference in some versions as a morality lesson for listeners.

The Song and Hangings Today

Other versions may contain clues about the origins or may just feature additional details added long after the execution.  One of the versions called “Working on the New Railroad” refers to railroad work. Below, Crooked Still performs their version of “Working on the New Railroad,” which also has some of the “hang me” lyrics.

There are a number of other good versions of “Hang Me” and the various variations, including ones by Amos Lee and Yonder Mountain String Band. Also, reportedly, Bob Dylan performed the song during the 1990 leg of his “Never Ending Tour.”

The Deep Dark Woods made a lively version of the song the title track of their 2008 album, Hang Me Oh Hang Me. I like what they do with the song. Check it out.

While hangings may seem a relic of the past, hanging is still an option for executions in Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington. In many ways, other current methods of killing prisoners also seem barbaric vestiges of the past.

States now have lethal injection as their primary method of execution.  But such executions still are not civilized, as shown by a recent 26-minute execution in Ohio.

Whether or not we will ever see a song about lethal injection that rivals “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” may depend on how much longer some states continue to kill prisoners.

What is your favorite version of “Oh Hang Me”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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  • The End of Maryland’s Death Penalty and “Green, Green Grass of Home”
  • The Killing of “Two Good Men”
  • Bono and Glen Hansard: The Auld Triangle

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    “I’ll Fly Away” and the Prisoner

    Albert BrumleyOn October 9, 2013, the state of Arizona executed the 71-year-old Edward H. Schad, Jr. by lethal injection in Florence, Arizona. Schad, the oldest person on the state’s death row, had been convicted of killing a man during a robbery almost 35 years earlier.

    The warden asked Schad if he had any last words. And the inmate responded, “Well, after 34 years, I’m free to fly away home. Thank you, warden. Those are my last words.”

    The Song That Inspired the Last Words

    Reverend Ronald Koplitz, who was Schad’s pastor and who met the prisoner in 1981 while serving as prison chaplain, explained that the last words were a reference to the hymn “I’ll Fly Away.” Rev. Koplitz had become friends with Schad and kept in touch with him after his time as prison chaplain.

    Rev. Koplitz gave Schad the song “I’ll Fly Away” a few weeks before the execution.  And apparently, Schad felt a connection to the song.

    “I’ll Fly Away”

    The song that gave some comfort to the prisoner in his final moments before being killed goes back to 1929.  In that year, Albert E. Brumley wrote “I’ll Fly Away.” The wonderful hymn, about eternal life and flying away “to that home on God’s celestial shore,” is one of the most popular gospel songs of all time.

    There are a number of great versions of “I’ll Fly Away.” The song has appeared in several movies, including in nice a version by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). Doc Watson played an instrumental version of “I’ll Fly Away” in his last public performance.  And the song appeared in The Waltons.

    Here is a great live version by Gillian Welch.

    “The Prisoner” Inspired the Song that Inspired a Prisoner

    When Schad referenced the song on the death gurney in Arizona, he likely did not know that his invocation of the song inside prison walls sort of brought the hymn home. When Brumley began writing the song while picking cotton, he was inspired by a song called “The Prisoner’s Song.”

    Brumley thought about that song regarding a prisoner thinking of leaving his love behind.  And he used a brilliant analogy using prison to represent life on earth.

    Brumley was inspired by specific lyrics in “The Prisoner’s Song.” The line “Now, if I had the wings of an angel,/Over these prison walls I would fly” led to Brumley’s theme about flying away.

    In this video, Johnny Cash sings “The Prisoner’s Song” on a January 20, 1971 episode of his TV show.

    During the introduction, Cash refers to the popularity of “The Prisoner’s Song.” Vernon Dalhart initially recorded the song in 1924 as a B-side to his version of “The Wreck of the Old 97.” “The Prisoner’s Song,” which likely was written by Dalhart’s cousin Guy Massey and/or Guy’s brother Robert Massey, became a big hit for Dalhart.

    In “I’ll Fly Away,” Brumley also retained the prison theme, using it as representing life on earth: “Like a bird from these prison walls I’ll fly.” It is not hard to see how Brumley’s wonderful song might bring some comfort to someone like Schad, strapped down on the execution gurney facing certain death. Music soothes both saints and sinners.

    What is your favorite version of “I’ll Fly Aawy”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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  • Oregon’s Death Penalty: 25 Minutes to Go
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    The End of Maryland’s Death Penalty and “Green, Green Grass of Home”

    Maryland 1795 On Thursday, May 2, 2013, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley signed a bill passed by the state legislature to make Maryland the eighteenth state (along with Washington, D.C.) to abolish capital punishment. In the last decade, six states have recognized that the death penalty is applied unfairly and that it does not make us safer than other punishments. Additionally, the discoveries of innocent people on death rows have illustrated the risks of the punishment, and studies also show that the death penalty is more expensive than a sentence of life in prison.

    For these and other reasons, in recent years Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York also have stopped using capital punishment. Other state legislatures are considering bills to abolish the death penalty.

    “Green, Green Grass of Home” and Its Twist Ending

    Thinking about Maryland’s death penalty, I remembered a hit song from the 1960s called “Green, Green Grass of Home.” Claude “Curly” Putman, Jr. wrote “Green, Green Grass of Home,” which is probably his biggest hit song along with Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” (he also co-wrote the George Jones song “He Stopped Loving Her Today”).

    “Green, Green Grass of Home” belongs in a unique group of songs that have a twist ending. The song begins with the singer talking about a trip home, but in the last verse, we learn that it was all a dream. Although there is no specific reference to the death penalty or executions, the verse makes clear that the singer will die at the hands of the state in the morning.
    green grass
    Then I awake and look around me,
    At the four gray walls that surround me,
    And I realize that I was only dreaming,
    For there’s a guard and a sad old padre,
    Arm in arm we’ll walk at daybreak,
    And at last I’ll touch                                                                                                                                            the green green grass of home.

    Putnam performs a clever sleight of hand in the song. He gets us to see the singer as a human being, one with feelings we can relate to, because everyone has been homesick. Only then does he let us know that the singer is on death row. Had the song begun by telling us the singer was condemned, we would have seen him in a different light and judged him as something other than human. But like Steve Earle’s “Over Yonder,” the song “Green, Green Grass of Home” lets us see the humanity even in the worst of us, which is pretty cool.

    Porter Wagoner Version

    Many have performed and recorded “Green, Green Grass of Home,” including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, and Gram Parsons. It was first recorded by Johnny Darrell.

    But Porter Wagoner was the first one to have a hit with “Green, Green Grass of Home” in 1965. Check out this performance and note the subtle special effects where the prison bar shadows appear at the end.

    Tom Jones Version

    The next year in 1966, Tom Jones had a hit with the song.  His version went to number 1 on the U.K. charts.

    This TV rendition of the song goes for a less subtle approach than the Porter Wagoner shadows.  Here, Tom Jones sings from a jail cell. The setting of the song, though, kind of spoils the surprise ending.

    Jerry Lee Lewis Version

    Tom Jones was inspired to record “Green, Green Grass of Home” after hearing it on Jerry Lee Lewis’s 1965 album Country Songs for City Folk. While it is easy to remember Lewis’s place in rock and roll history, sometimes his excellent country work is overlooked.

    Here is Lewis’s version.

    Joan Baez Version

    Joan Baez gives a unique version by being one of the rare woman’s voices to tackle the song.  It is appropriate because there currently are approximately sixty women on death rows around the country.

    Baez does a nice job in this performance from The Smothers Brothers Show.

    Finally, in 2006, Lewis and Jones performed “Green, Green Grass of Home” together. While the lyrics of the song constitute a soliloquy that does not lend itself to being a duet, it was still cool to see the great Tom Jones singing with the legend who inspired him to record one of his biggest hits. [October 2014 Update: Unfortunately, the video of the duet is no longer available on YouTube.]

    Capital Punishment After “Green, Green Grass of Home”

    One may only speculate about the impact of the song on society or society’s impact on the song. But in 1965-1966 when the song was a big hit for Porter Wagoner in the U.S. and for Tom Jones in the U.K., the death penalty was at low levels of popularity in those countries.

    Great Britain would abolish the death penalty on a trial basis in 1965 and abolish it permanently in 1969. In the U.S., executions ground to a halt in the late 1960s as courts considered court challenges to the U.S. death penalty.

    Within a decade, after states passed new laws, the U.S. death penalty machine began chugging along in the late 1970s, even as other countries continued to abolish capital punishment. But more recently, since the turn of the century, several states have joined the other states and countries that have decided the death penalty is unnecessary, uncivilized, and wasteful of resources.

    Maryland has now joined those civilized states and countries. The end of the death penalty, unlike “Green, Green Grass of Home,” is not a dream.

    What is your favorite version of “Green, Green Grass of Home”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Connecticut’s Hangman and Johnny Cash’s Last Song
  • Oregon’s Death Penalty: 25 Minutes to Go
  • “Nebraska” and the Death Penalty
  • Dylan’s “Julius & Ethel”
  • The Journey of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” From the Scaffold to the Screen
  • The Impromptu Million Dollar Quartet

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

  • Connecticut’s Hangman and Johnny Cash’s Last Song
  • Oregon’s Death Penalty: 25 Minutes to Go
  • “Nebraska” and the Death Penalty
  • Dylan’s “Julius & Ethel”
  • The Journey of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” From the Scaffold to the Screen
  • The Impromptu Million Dollar Quartet

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    One for Ten: Traveling Online Film Series on Capital Punishment

    oneten

    Documentary filmmakers Will Francome and Mark Pizzey are traveling around the country to produce a unique set of documentaries on capital punishment in the U.S. As the filmmakers travel, they will create a One for Ten series of short documentaries about innocent people who were sentenced to death. These documentaries will be immediate, shot in one day and edited overnight in motel rooms. After each documentary is uploaded, viewers may contribute to the final versions of the films through suggestions, artwork, and other input.

    As Fancome and Pizzey describe the project on their website: “One for Ten will be a completely new form of film-making, utilizing modern video technology, social networking, user generated content and a strong media and charity coalition to make what we like to think of as ‘democratic documentary'” They explain the project in more detail in the following video.

    They will be on the road March and April driving across the United States, filming a different person every few days. For example, their blog recently announced that one of their movies will feature Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person who was sentenced to death who was exonerated by DNA evidence. They will release a new short film online every Tuesday and Friday. Below is their pilot 5-minute movie about Ray Krone, who was wrongfully sentenced to death in Arizona. Danny Glover narrates the short documentary.

    Besides the interesting and cutting edge plan for the way Francome and Pizzey are making the movies, the project highlights problems with the U.S. death penalty. If innocent people can end up on death row, it shows that there are other underlying problems with the capital punishment system too. These and other reasons have led to states repealing the death penalty in recent years. Currently, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe are saying they would support ending the death penalty in their states too. And the Maryland Senate is close to voting on a bill that would repeal the death penalty. For more on the One for Ten project, check out the website or follow the project on Twitter.

    Will you follow the progress as Fancome and Pizzey work their way across the country? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Killing of “Two Good Men”

    Sacco and VanzettiOn August 23, 1927, Massachusetts executed Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti. The two admitted anarchists were Italian immigrants executed for the 1921 murder of a person during an armed robbery of a shoe company paymaster.

    The Trial and Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti

    The fish-peddler and shoemaker had no prior criminal record when they were arrested for the murder.  But they were prosecuted during a period of anti-immigrant and anti-radical sentiment, and many aspects of their trial were unfair.

    The judge overseeing the proceedings saw the two men as “anarchist bastards,” but others rallied in support of the accused. At the time of their execution, protests were held at many places around the U.S.

    Many still believe to this day that the two men were innocent of the crime.  Also, there have been recent arguments that only Vanzetti was innocent. There is a Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society that works to keep the case in the public eye, and there is an exhibit about the case at the courthouse in Massachusetts.

    Woody Guthrie and “Two Good Men”

    Many years after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, folk-singer Woody Guthrie found some kinship in the plight of the two men. In the mid-1940s, he worked on a project of several songs about Sacco and Vanzetti to tell their story.

    One of the songs in the cycle is “Two Good Men.”

    Like Guthrie’s song about “Tom Joad,” which we discussed previously, “Two Good Men” is a story song.  “Two Good Men” focuses on the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the song is not as complete and detailed as “Tom Joad,” it contains many details.

    Some of the details in the song include the names of the judge (Webster Thayer) and the people who prosecuted the two men: “I’ll tell you the prosecutors’ names,/ Katsman, Adams, Williams, Kane.”

    In addition to the details of the case, in “Two God Men” Guthrie also focuses on connecting the execution to the labor movement of his day:

    All you people ought to be like me,
    And work like Sacco and Vanzetti;
    And every day find some ways to fight
    On the union side for workers’ rights.

    Supposedly, Guthrie was unsatisfied with his cycle of songs about Sacco and Vanzetti. Eventually, he gave up on the project.

    Fortunately Guthrie’s songs about Sacco and Vanzetti were not lost.  The founder of Folkway Records Moe Asch, who had commissioned the songs, went ahead and released the unfinished product.

    Guthrie was probably right that “Two Good Men” and the other songs did not live up to his best work. I prefer folksinger Charlie King’s song about Sacco and Vanzetti with a similar name, “Two Good Arms.” But Guthrie also was right that we should continue to remember and fight against injustices.

    {Woody at 100 is our continuing series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie on July 14, 1912. Check out our other posts on Guthrie and the Woody Guthrie Centennial too. }

    Photo via public domain.

    What do you think of “Two Good Men”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • “Nebraska” and the Death Penalty
  • The Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti: Two Good Arms
  • Dylan’s “Julius & Ethel”
  • The Journey of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” From the Scaffold to the Screen
  • The End of Maryland’s Death Penalty and “Green, Green Grass of Home”
  • Bono and Glen Hansard: The Auld Triangle

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)