2025 Competition Entry:

Gallows Tree by Willy Adam

Genre

Pop

Artist

Website

Co-writer(s)

no

Performer(s)

Description

This is about failing to acknowledge rejection – ‘you’re killing me over and over’. I liked the gloomy feeling of places like the flooded valleys of Wales and sunken medieval town Dunwich where the church bells are supposed to ring under the water and sometimes ghosts can be heard. I doubled up the acoustic guitar for a slightly wobbly feel and pitched the ‘you are’ refrain up by an octave for the ghostly sound.

Bio

I’ve been writing songs since doing my paper round in the 60s (as a way of easing the monotony). When my son took an interest in music we collaborated on a number of songs, recording about 30 or so in the garden shed and I’ve done several alone. I’m not a competent musician and certainly not a performer but I can play enough to get a song across.

Lyrics

The Gallows Tree

I was found in the trunk of a car
I was buried by mud in a trench in the war
Burned alive by the ones who survived
Then they shot me and carried me here

In the winter of ‘32
In the slaughter, hung, drawn and quartered
Left to rot there in ‘33
I was found by the gallows tree

Oh the gallows tree, you are…
You abandoned me, you are…
Like the gallows tree, you are…
You are killing me

I lay dead at the side of the road for a day
The same road that the legions rode out on for Rome
Here Dalziel ran me through in a ditch by the Tay
I got hit by a train in a small town in Maine

Oh she shot me right through the heart
Saw her lover run off in the dark
I was dead by the time they were cleansed
I returned then to take my revenge

Oh the gallows tree, you are…
You abandoned me, you are…
Like the gallows tree, you are…
You are killing me

When you’re near to death, you’ve the fear of death
When you give your death, then you live for death
When the time runs out, coins are given out
When they come for you, when it’s time for you

When you run from them, when you cower from them
Crave forgiveness then, from the worst of men
Will you run from me, my uncertainty
Hanging like a leaf, on the Gallows Tree

Oh the gallows tree, you are…
You abandoned me, you are…
Like the gallows tree, you are…
You are killing me

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