I first heard the folk song, “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” on an early Dave Van Ronk record entitled, “Inside Dave Van Ronk”. Later when I was working with Bill Felix’s bluegrass band, “Magnolia Road”, Bill would pull out his old beat up Gibson flat top guitar and sing the tune….he learned it from a Gerry Garcia version but gave it his own twist.
I always loved the song but had forgotten about it. I stumbled upon it again when it was featured in the Coen Brothers film, “Inside Llewyn Davis” and performed by the actor/musician Oscar Isaac. Isaac’s version was a nice rendering largely based on Van Ronk’s recording of the tune.
Nobody is exactly sure how the song originated and like most folk songs there are different versions on the song with a few different titles. The song has been performed as “I’ve Been All Around This World,” “The Gambler,” “My Father Was a Gambler,” “Cape Girardeau,” and “The New Railroad.” The Library of Congress documents the first version to be recorded as“I’ve Been All Around This World” (AFS 1531) by Justis Begley. Alan and Elizabeth Lomax, the great folk song musicologists, recorded Alan Begley singing the song at Hazard, Kentucky in October of 1937.
So who is the condemned man singing the song? Nobody knows for sure but there is high speculation that it may be one of the men hanged in Ft. Smith, Arkansas by the notorious “hanging judge”, Judge Isaac Parker between 1873 and 1876. Some people believe the man in song is John Childers who spoke for sixteen minutes on the scaffold. The U.S. Marshall who had arrested Childers offered clemency to the condemned man if he would reveal the names of his accomplices.
According to witnesses that day, Childers would not “rat out” his friends. He turned to the Marshall and stated, “Didn’t you say you were going to hang me?” The Marshall nodded his head yes and then Childers replied, “Then, why in hell don’t you!”
Here is my version of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me”. I play it in D major as Dave Von Ronk but Iam tuned to a Drop D tuning. I slowed my version down and added an instrumental solo. I hope you like it.