Songs About Prisoners Waitin’ Around To Die

Country Music is concerned with topics like life and death, sin and salvation, and the experience of the outsider and the lower classes. It should come as no surprise then that many fine country songs feature prisoners waiting to die. Here are 10 of the finest.

• 10. “They’re Hanging Me Tonight” - Johnny Bush
  The famous version is by Marty Robbins, but this one is damn good too. This song tells an old kind of tale. Boy meets Girl. Girl meets a different Boy. Boy #1 tracks down and murders Girl and Boy #2. This song isn’t particularly original or clever, but it’s touching and satisfying as both an archetypal story and archetypal western song. “I think about this thing I’ve done. I know it wasn’t right. They’ll bury Flo tomorrow but they’re hanging me tonight.”
• 9. “Justice for All” - Dale Watson
  In this Cash-esque tune, Dale Watson wrestles with making sense of his compulsion for revenge and his faith in forgiveness in the wake of the murder of his child. He embraces his compulsion and accepts the earthly consequences, namely, his execution. Dale generally sings like a man condemned, so this song suits him.
• 8. “Turn It on, Turn It On, Turn It On” - Tom T. Hall
  This is, by far, the best “story song” on this list, which isn’t that surprising since it comes to us from the master of the story song, Tom T. Hall. It’s a freewheelin’ number about a man named John who, tired of being called a coward, went on a murder spree and killed seven people and faced his execution with enthusiasm. Hall does a phenomenal job of conveying John’s devilish glee and shows us that madness can be half fun.
• 7. “I Hung My Head” - Johnny Cash
  I don’t care much for Sting’s music, but here he wrote one hell of a country song. This song is a straight-faced narrative, the central theme of which is “the power of death over life” and the demoralizing impact that tragedy can have. Filled with incredible lines, an impressive symmetry, and a hook that illustrates exactly what it needs to with one impactful image and just four words; this is a rich song that an aged Johnny Cash delivers perfectly.
• 6. “Will You Visit Me On Sunday” - Marty Stuart and Loretta Lynn
  Even murderers can feel love, and in this devastating duet, Marty Stuart has his last visit with his sweetheart, Loretta Lynn, before he hangs. He knows he can’t escape his fate, but he needs to ask her something, “Will you visit me on Sunday? Will you bring me pretty flowers? Will your big blue eyes be misty? Will you brush away a tear? A grave is filled with silence, but if a sleeping man could hear..” and before Marty can finish his question, Loretta answers for him “Darling you’d hear my footsteps up there.” Wow.
• 5. “Over Yonder” - Steve Earle
  What makes this song so deeply touching is that it isn’t a formal last confession, the scene of the song isn’t the electric chair, and the speaker’s audience isn’t his and the victim’s families. Instead, Steve Earle gives us a final confession that has the candor and tenderness that exists in conversations between friends when saying goodbye for the last time, and in doing so, gives us the opportunity to play the part of the condemned’s true friend and source of comfort in the moments before he takes that final walk alongside the chaplain. Steve Earle is really something.
• 4. “25 Minutes To Go” - Johnny Cash
  “Well they’re building a gallows outside my cell and I’ve got 25 minutes to go” If you’ve never heard Johnny Cash perform this Shel Silverstein penned song about a convict counting down his final minutes, then you have something wonderful to look forward to. I think that much of the humor in country music could be classified as “gallows humor”, but this is perhaps the most striking example of it. It’s hard to say what’s more thrilling here, Shel’s writing (which meanders expertly between the absurd and the tragic) or Cash’s brilliant performance of the song on the At Folsom Prison album.
• 3. “Green, Green, Grass of Home” - Porter Wagoner
  This is a classic example of a song with a twist ending. I had a songbook growing up that included this one–but only the first two verses. Imagine my surprise when I heard the third and final verse that reveals that the beautiful, idealized version of home, complete with a vibrant sweetheart, loving parents, and the old oak tree, is nothing more than a condemned man’s fantasy. The revelation is every bit as crushing as the fantasy was beautiful. This song is destined to become an American classic.
• 2. “Billy Austin” - Steve Earle
  A lot was made of Eric Church’s courage, conviction, and talent when he released his song “Lightning” last year which attempts to humanize a convicted murdered. I can only imagine that those who heaped praise on the Church cut have never heard Billy Austin by Steve Earle. Earle doesn’t need to give his killer an excuse to have killed, or an excuse to have turned to crime. No sir, Billy Austin is a guilty man. In his own words, “the kid done like I told him/and he laid face down on the floor/guess I’ll never know what made me/turn and walk back through that door/The shot rang out like thunder/my ears rang like a bell/no one came runnin’/so I called the cops myself”. Therein lies the strength of this song, Earle doesn’t go to lengths to “humanize” his killer. What Earle does is introduce the listener to a human being with a name, and an age, and a place of birth, and a background, and a story to tell, in other words, a human being like the rest of us. Then, after introducing him to us, or rather having Billy introduce himself, and confess his crime, Earle has us participate in Billy Austin’s death. I can’t imagine that any new death penalty song will be able to top this one, and I truly wanted to put it as my #1 pick, but I just couldn’t put it above…
• 1. “Sing Me Back Home” - Merle Haggard
  Sing Me Back Home is, and probably forever will be, the classic prisoner waiting to die song. Hag doesn’t evaluate the mind of a killer here. He doesn’t give us any biographical info on him whatsoever. What he does do is sets the scene in the opening lines “The warden led a prisoner/down the hallway to his doom/I stood up to say good-bye like all the rest” and then proceeds to give us an interaction that absolutely breaks our hearts. The condemned turns to his “guitar playin’ friend” and has a request for him.

  “Sing me back home with a song I used to hear
  Make my old memories come alive
  Take me away and turn back the years
  Sing Me Back Home before I die”

  In “Sing Me Back Home” there is no talk of salvation, and no hope for a reprieve, but while letting us participate in a moment of extreme human vulnerability and dignity, Merle Haggard reminds us that “the song” is an accessible consolation in even the most dire of times, and for even the most lost among us. Thanks Merle.