Early one morning with time to kill
I borrowed Jeb’s rifle and sat on the hill
I saw a lone rider crossing the plain
I drew a bead on him to practice my aim
My brother’s rifle went off in my hand
A shot rang out across the land
The horse, he kept running. The rider was dead
I hung my head.  I hung my head

I set off running to wake from the dream
My brother’s rifle went into the (stream / sheen)
I kept on running into the (salt / south) lands
That’s where they found me, my head in my hands
The sheriff he asked me why had I run
And then it came to me just what I had done
And all for no reason, just one peace of lead
I hung my head.  I hung my head

Here in the court house, the whole town was there
I see the judge high up in the chair
“Explain to the court room what went through your mind
And we’ll ask the jury what verdict they find”
(I said) “I felt the power of death over life
I orphaned his children. I widowed his wife
I beg their forgiveness.  I wish I was dead.”
I hung my head.  I hung my head

Early one morning with time to kill
I see the gallows up on the hill
And out in the distance, a trick of the brain
I see a lone rider crossing the plain
And he’s come to fetch me to see what they’d done
And we’ll ride together ’til Kingdom come
I pray for God’s mercy for soon I’ll be dead
I hung my head.  I hung my head.

The Wikipedia article for “I Hung My Head” posits, without citation, that the song reflects “Sting’s childhood fondness for TV Westerns, as well as his avowed interest in Country Music.”  I think Sting’s loyal fans know these things are true. But, for the rest of us, both statements are verified by Sting himself in the beginning of next YouTube video linked below.  Then again, though true, neither claim is particularly helpful given that this song is deeper than all that.  It just isn’t so simple as to be Sting’s country ballad version of Bonanza!  However, we are lucky enough to have Sting’s own words from at least two other reliable sources to give us some clarity.

First, there is the entry for “I Hung My Head” on page 195 of the 2007 publication Lyrics by Sting.  He comments on how it is now “a bona fide ‘Country’ song” because of Cash’s cover.  He dismisses the slight lyric difference as irrelevant to the power of the song.  However, he makes an interesting artistic comment as well.

“I wrote the song in 9/8; the guitar riff just occurred to me that way and reminded me of the gait of a galloping horse dragging a corpse.  The story of a terrible accident, guilt, and redemption materialized out of the title and out of the haunting image of the riderless horse.”

Presumably he was “reminded” of such a grisly gait from those Westerns he watched as a child.  Guilt and redemption of course is the stuff of great literature, but Sting mentions nothing about the gun.  However, we also have a Rolling Stone interview from 2010, in which the interviewer asks Sting about the fact that he was again playing “I Hung My Head” in concert, this time with an orchestra.

YouTube live ‘orchestral’ version, 2010 (with comments re: Westerns, etc.)

RS: You’re playing your 1996 murder ballad ‘I Hung My Head’ on this tour. What do you think of Johnny Cash’s version of the song?

Who better to sing that song? He got one of the words wrong, though. He changed “stream” to “sheen”. But I wasn’t going to call him up and say, “Hey Johnny, you’ve got to re-record it!”

RS: The song is about a man who accidentally murders someone. What inspired it?

It was just free association. It’s not something I experienced firsthand – I wrote ‘Tomorrow We’ll See’, about a transsexual prostitute, which is also something I’ve not experienced! I just thought ‘I Hung My Head’ offered an interesting moral argument: “Does this man deserve to die when it was an accident?” The song is really about the idea of guns having a totemic image that will attract their misuse. That’s why I don’t own any guns.”

Now we see why this song works so well in our series Implements of Destruction.  Leaving aside the murkier idea of ‘totemic imagery’ for a moment, we can triangulate Sting’s comments in Rolling Stone with his simpler spoken introduction recorded in the YouTube link immediately above.

Just before he starts playing, he makes it clear.  “It’s about a gun.”

I Hung My Head – pt. 1 – by waiton at DeviantArt

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