Random Most Harrowing Songs About Execution (15 items)

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  (#1) 'The Mercy Seat' By Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

  The Lyrics:

  In Heaven His throne is made of gold

  The ark of His Testament is stowed

  A throne from which I'm told

  All history does unfold

  Down here it's made of wood and wire

  And my body is on fire

  And God is never far away

  The Story: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds recorded "The Mercy Seat" in 1988 for the album Tender Prey. Critics theorize that the lyrics draw on the rhetoric of both the Old and New Testaments as Cave tells a story about a man awaiting execution. The phrase "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" in the third verse and repeated later in the song is reminiscent of Old Testament law. The convict in question seems to wonder if he is truly deserving of the punishment he faces, and he sings that he's not afraid to face his end. 

  As the song progresses, however, and the convict grows closer to his inevitable demise, he begins to question his philosophy, and wonders instead about the forgiveness granted by the "ragged stranger" who "died upon the cross." By the end of the song, he confesses that he's afraid he "told a lie." 
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  (#2) Sing Me Back Home

  • Joel Harrison, Jen Chapin

  The Lyrics:

  The warden led a prisoner down the hallway to his doom

  And I stood up to say good-bye like all the rest

  And I heard him tell the warden just before he reached my cell

  "Let my guitar-playing friend do my request"

  The Story: Merle Haggard spent years in and out of jail for petty crimes, beginning with juvenile detention at age 11. He was eventually sentenced to 15 years in San Quentin State Prison for burglary, though he only ended up serving a few of those years. In 1958, he heard Johnny Cash perform at the prison, which inspired him to focus on his own music career. 

  Haggard also befriended Caryl Chessman and James Rabbit during his stay at San Quentin. Both Chessman and Rabbit were eventually executed. "Sing Me Back Home" tells the story of an inmate who asks the warden to let his friend sing his final song as he's escorted to the chamber.  
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  (#3) Ride the Lightning

  • Metallica

  The Lyrics:

  Wait for the sign

  To flick the switch of death

  It's the beginning of the end

  Sweat, chilling cold

  As I watch death unfold

  Consciousness my only friend

  The Story: Metallica recorded Ride the Lightning in 1984 while they were struggling to stay afloat. It is their second full-length album, and it has since become a foundational piece of their discography. The title song takes the perspective of someone who sits in an electric chair waiting for their final moments.

  Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett told Rolling Stone that he was reading Stephen King's The Stand while they were working on the album, and in one passage, a character refers to death row as waiting to "ride the lightning." Hammett thought, "Wow, what a great song title," and the rest is history. 
• 

  (#4) Gallows Pole

  • Led Zeppelin

  The Lyrics: 

  Your brother brought me silver

  Your sister warmed my soul

  But now I laugh and pull so hard

  And see you swinging on the gallows pole

  The Story: Led Zeppelin adapted their haunting song about a maiden pleading for someone to free her from the gallows pole from a traditional tune recorded by blues guitarist Leadbelly as "Gallis Pole." The earliest version of the song is centuries old and is titled "The Maid Freed from the Gallows."
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  (#5) Let Him Dangle

  • Elvis Costello

  The Lyrics: 

  Well it's hard to imagine it's the times that have changed

  When there's a murder in the kitchen that is brutal and strange

  If killing anybody is a terrible crime

  Why does this bloodthirsty chorus come round from time to time

  Let him dangle

  The Story: Elvis Costello wrote "Let Him Dangle" in response to 19-year-old Derek Bentley's trial and ultimate demise as a result of his 1952 crime.

  Bentley suffered from epilepsy and reportedly had an IQ of only 66. He and another teen, Chris Craig, were attempting to rob a warehouse when police caught them. According to police accounts, Bentley yelled, "Let him have it, Chris," and Craig subsequently fired at the officers, wounding one and ending another. Later, Bentley denied saying these words, but both Bentley and Craig were convicted. 

  Craig, who was only 16 at the time of the misdeed and therefore too young to receive a capital sentence, was eventually released from prison. Bentley was hanged in 1953 despite public protests. In 1993, Bentley received a posthumous pardon.
• 

  (#6) 'Walking Down Death Row' By Pete Seeger

  The Lyrics: 

  Singing down death row

  To each separate human cell - one billion, two, or three

  If you'd only stick together, you'd not be here

  If you could love another's child

  If you could love another's life like your own, you'd not be here

  And if only this you could believe

  You still might, you might still be reprieved

  The Story: Pete Seeger was a well-known civil rights activist throughout much of his life. He adapted the song that became the civil rights movement's anthem, "We Shall Overcome." But Seeger has a couple of challenging folk ballads up his sleeve, including 1966's "Walking Down Death Row." 

  The song follows a singer who, while walking down death row, laments what has happened to the prisoners but also tries to offer a message of hope. 
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  (#7) 16 on Death Row

  • Tupac Shakur

  The Lyrics:

  Bye bye, and I got no place to go

  Where you find me? 16 on Death Row

  Dear mama, they sentenced me to death

  Today's my final day, I'm countin' every breath

  The Story: Tupac "2Pac" Shakur's "16 On Death Row" was released posthumously as part of the album R U Still Down? which featured a great deal of the late rapper's work left behind after his untimely demise. His mother released the album in 1997. 

  "16 On Death Row" warns kids what can happen as a result of "glamorous young thugs living the high life in a mean world that they'll never admit to their part in making," as described by Rolling Stone. 2Pac's lyrics caution that the narrator "turned to a life of crime" because he came from "a broken family," telling the sorrowful tale of a teen wrecked by unfair circumstances. 
• 

  (#8) A Singer Must Die

  • Leonard Cohen

  The Lyrics: 

  Now the courtroom is quiet, but who will confess

  Is it true you betrayed us? The answer is "yes"

  Then read me the list of the crimes that are mine

  I will ask for the mercy that you love to decline

  And all the ladies go moist, and the judge has no choice

  A singer must die for the lie in his voice

  The Story: Leonard Cohen's sorrowful lament is featured on his fourth studio album, New Skin for the Old Ceremony, released in 1974. In an interview on an Irish television program in 1988, he explained his motivation behind the song, revealing that its story of trial and possible execution is a metaphor: 

  There's something I listen for in a singer's voice and that's some kind of truth. It may even be truth of deception, it may even be the truth of the scam, the truth of the hustle in the singer's own presentation, but something is coming across that is true, and if that isn't there the song dies. And the singer deserves to die too, and will, in time.
• 

  (#9) 'Dead Man' By Pearl Jam

  The Lyrics: 

  Every lift of my hand 

  Coffee cup and back

  Is magnified by the things I've done

  The things I've seen 

  The things I've caused

  I'm a dead man walking

  The hammer that I once brung down now hovers over me

  Cast a shadow across, onto me

  The Story: "Dead Man" seems to be sung from the perspective of an inmate facing capital punishment who laments the fact that he is confronted by the hammer he "once brung down."

  Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder is, in fact, an anti-capital punishment advocate, and he performed at a 1998 benefit, "Not In Our Name: Dead Man Walking - The Concert," which raised funds to fight against capital punishment. Vedder recorded another anti-capital punishment song, "The Long Road," with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for the 1995 film Dead Man Walking.
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  (#10) 'Dead Man Walkin'' By Bruce Springsteen

  The Lyrics: 

  In Saint James' Parish

  I was born and christened

  Now I've got my story

  Mister, ain't no need for you to listen

  It's just a dead man talkin'

  The Story: Bruce Springsteen wrote and performed the title track for the 1995 film Dead Man Walking, featuring Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen Prejean, a nun tasked with corresponding with Sean Penn's character Matthew Poncelet, a convicted felon awaiting lethal injection. 

  Pitchfork describes Springsteen's track as "a summary of crime and punishment." The song was nominated for an Academy Award in 1996.  
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  (#11) 'I'm Not the Man' By 10,000 Maniacs

  The Lyrics: 

  On the day he was tried, no witness testified

  Nothing but evidence, not hard to falsify

  His own confession was a prosecutor's prize

  Made up of fear, of rage, and of outright lies

  But I'm not the man

  He goes free

  As the candle vigil glows

  As they burn my clothes

  As the crowd cries, "hang him slow!"

  And I feel my blood go cold

  The Story: 10,000 Maniacs closes their fifth studio album with "I'm Not the Man," which takes the perspective of a wrongfully incarcerated black man awaiting execution.

  The album itself, Our Time in Eden, was described by Slate as the band's masterpiece. The same review calls "I'm Not the Man" "foreboding" with a "sense of helplessness and despair."
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  (#12) Hallowed Be Thy Name

  • Iron Maiden

  The Lyrics: 

  Somebody please tell me that I'm dreaming

  It's not easy to stop from screaming

  The words escape me when I try to speak

  Tears flow, but why am I crying

  After all I'm not afraid of dying

  Don't I believe that there never is an end?

  The Story: "Hallowed Be Thy Name" is one of Iron Maiden's most notable songs. It is a first-person account of a man trying to understand why he's scared to face the end of his life since he believes his immortal soul will live on. It is the final track on the band's third studio album, The Number of the Beast. 

  In 2017, Iron Maiden was sued by rock manager Barry Mckay on behalf of Brian Quinn and Robert Barton of the band Beckett. He claimed the metal superstars took lyrics Quinn wrote for a Beckett song called "Life's Shadow" in 1969. Quinn told MetalTalk that the original song was "part of a series of songs about the last surviving dragon and the last dragon slayer," and that as he began to reflect on losing his father, his memory "seemed to infuse the words and music." 
• 

  (#13) 'Death Row' By Judas Priest

  The Lyrics: 

  We've all been detained

  For the crimes we've committed

  They stayed execution

  But we'll never get acquitted

  Waiting for the day when they strap us in

  And when they pull the lever

  Hear the goddamn screams 

  Shake with fear

  Electric chair

  The Story: "Death Row" shows up on Judas Priest's 13th studio album, Jugulator, which is also the first album released with vocalist Tim Owens in 1997. When Owens joined the metal superstars, "Burn in Hell" and "Death Row" were already written. The latter tells the story of a man waiting to be led to the chamber, lamenting that he "made one mistake" and "that's all it takes" to send him to "meet [his] maker." 

   
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  (#14) Renegade

  • Styx

  The Lyrics: 

  Oh Mama, I've been years on the lam and had a high price on my head

  Lawman said, "Get him dead or alive" - I was for sure he'll see me dead

  Dear Mama, I can hear you a-cryin', you're so scared and all alone

  Hangman is comin' down from the gallows, and I don't have very long

  The Story: Styx's enduring 1979 rock track tells the first-person perspective of a "wanted man" who's been captured for a bounty and laments his impending trip to the gallows. Tommy Shaw wrote and performed lead vocals on the song, which has since become a staple in pop culture.  
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  (#15) 'Execution Day' By Meat Loaf

  The Lyrics:

  Voices like locusts keep smothering me

  Twisting and turning my senses like a cyclone at sea

  Don't touch me now, won't let you crucify me

  You ain't no damn jury, you can't pass no sentence on me

  The Story: Rock legend Dick Wagner wrote "Execution Day" for Meat Loaf, which was released on his 1986 album Blind Before I Stop. The track is sung from the perspective of a condemned man who laments his impending demise. He uses biblical imagery to accuse his executioners of crucifying him, and passing a sentence they have no right to. 

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