Dangle

For this week’s Crime Time Radio, I was going to go with a crime and punishment theme, but I ended up taking a song of hanging, Led Zeppelin’s Gallows Pole, and looking at its ancestry and variants. It’s commonly traced back to The Maid Freed from the Gallows, and old English folk ballad, although it can be taken back even further to ancient Greece. Leadbelly’s take on it is not much different, as far as lyrics are concerned, from Zeppelin’s, whereas Dylan substantially rewrote it into Seven Curses.

Sound sources
Leadbelly Gallis Pole
Solas Seven Curses
Band of Joy Gallows Pole

Lyrics
The Maid Freed from the Gallows
Gallis Pole
Seven Curses
Gallows Pole