I am the featured blogger on the first and second Wednesdays of each month on the Blogger platform for Western Fictioneers and Prairie Rose Publications. I will repost a truncated version of those articles for my #HelloFriday! and #FridayFavorites posts on those two weeks with a link to the full article.
September’s song on the Western Fictioneer‘s blogspot is the ballad They’re Hanging Me Tonight by Marty Robbins.
The story expresses the lamentations of a man facing his hanging for murdering Flo (ex-girlfriend?) and ‘her new love’. It’s also interesting to note that the man apparently didn’t evade arrest after he killed Flo and her new man, since they’ll bury Flo tomorrow, but they’re hanging me tonight. Not much time has elapsed between murder and punishment.
Conversely, if he did flee the scene at the dimly lit café, he wasn’t on the lam for long. Reading between the lines suggests Old West ‘justice’ happened to bring about his hanging so quickly after Flo is buried. No lengthy trial for this man. Was this a case of vigilante justice for the double murders—these crimes of passion—since he freely admits what he did wasn’t right? Either way, his heart is filled with fear as he faces his imminent execution.
James Lowe and Art Wolpert wrote They’re Hanging Me Tonight. Marty Robbins released it in September 1959 on his album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. The album’s peak position on the country music chart for 1960 was No. 6 in the U.S. and No. 20 in the U.K.
Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time