Hanging Song

Hanging Song - Fairport Convention
Wake up John, it's time to go Come along John
and don't be slow.
Come along John, don't be slow Wake up John,
it's time to go.
Wake up John, it's time to go.
A priest joins the procession just to help me kneel.
With a warder at my elbow and another at my heel.
Marching in the morning down a path I've lately seen.
I was sleeping in this garden,
am I still within my dream?
The echo of my heartbeat is the beating of a drum.
And all the earth is singing with life's sweet hum.
We filed in solemn silence, shuffled through a door.
The place where life is taken for the letter of the law.
Shake the holy water, summon up the guard.
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard.
A rope was hanging from the roof,
a sight which puzzles me.
I thought a gibbet and a guard would
make a gallows tree.
But now all is revealed, stamped
there is the command.
My feet are on the trapdoor with a rope
around my hand.
And now the executioner is shaking hands with me.
"My duty I must carry out, you poor fellow," says he.
A strap is tied around my feet
and a bag upon my head.
And then the noose which separates the living
from the dead.
Shake the holy water, summon up the guard.
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard.
There he whispers to me "Have you anything to say?"
My mouth is dry, my throat is tight,
I answer "Drop away".
Silence now surrounds me, my heart is beating on.
The trapdoor hardly moves at all,
my life is still my own.
They stand me in a corner with my hands
and feet still bound.
While a carpenter is called for
and an explanation found.
"The rain has warped the timbers,"
I hear the hangman say.
"It's funny but it worked well, I tried it yesterday".
"All is mended now," they say, "
your ordeal's nearly over.
Your life's as good as ended,"
but I hear their voices waver.
Once more the board is shaked?
and again I hang in limbo.
While the guards jump on the trapdoor
and my body stands on tip-toe.
Shake the holy water, summon up the guard.
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard.
They stand me in a corner with my hands
and feet still ties.
A warder holds onto the noose,
the trapdoor opens wide.
Is it magic or coincidence
that keeps me on the brink?
It seems to work without me,
"Will it kill me now?" I think.
"Please, I'm tired of living and I really want to die".
I was taken to the scaffold
and I heard the hangman cry.
"Lee, I'm truly sorry, forgive these hands of mine".
He drew the bolt and I felt the jolt the third
and final time.
My life was spared that morning 'cos
it wasn't theirs to take.
Three's the boat the law requires,
a man could feel the stake.
Shake the holy water, summon up the guard.
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard.
Shake the holy water, summon up the guard.
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard.
Shake the holy water, summon up the guard.
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard.
Shake the holy water, summon up the guard.
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard.
Shake the holy water, summon up the guard.
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard.