Iron Maiden - The Trooper - a soldier in the Crimean War and is based on the Poem “The Charge of The light Brigade”
“Keep Me In Your Heart” - Warren Zevon
The singer in Florence and the Machine’s “What the Water Gave Me” doesn’t sound like she’s going to last too long.
Tell Laura I Love Her, by Ray Peters
According to Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs, he gets through the chorus too many times before the paramedics turn off his oxygen.
“2x4” - Pat MacDonald (timbuck 3)
About watching the gallows being built before his execution
“God Told Me To” - Paul Kelly
A murderer justifies his murder spree at his execution(see: Paul Kelly - God Told Me To - YouTube )
“My Way” – Written by Paul Anka, (most famously) Sung by Frank Sinatra
Note that I specifically ruled this song out in the OP. In general, I’m not looking for songs sung by people waiting to be executed… I guess the criterion would be that it should be physically impossible for the singer to be singing the song because they’re either dead or mortally wounded. I’d say “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “Powderfinger” qualify. (I just thought of another one… “Polly on the Shore” by Fairport Convention … “And here am I a-bleedin’ on the deck and for her sweet sake must die”).
I wouldn’t count this one because the singer is relating someone else’s last words.
“Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel” – Barenaked Ladies
One of my favorite songs: Stan by Eminem.
This is the one that immediately sprang to mind (along with his recording of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door)…are these the only ones here that were *literally *sung by a dying man?
Kate by Johnny Cash - at the last update the singer is thirteen steps from the chair (or the gallows), and he sings a bit more after that.
similarly,
Green Green Grass of Home by Tom Jones, though it’s not yet daybreak on the morning of his hanging
and I can’t believe no-one’s said
Bat out of Hell - Meat Loaf… the singer’s just seen his heart burst out of his body and fly away, so he’s doing well to manage the last chorus :dubious:
He’s not being hung, he’s a KIA serviceman who was shipped home for burial.
*Then I awake and look around me, at the four grey walls that surround me,
and I realize, yes, I was only dreaming.
For there’s a guard and there’s a sad old padre—
arm in arm we’ll walk at daybreak,
again I’ll touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they’ll all come to see me in the shade of that old oak tree,
as they lay me 'neath the green, green grass of home.
*
“And I awake and look around me
At four grey walls that surround me
And I realize I was only dreaming
For there’s a guard, and there’s a sad old padre:
Arm in arm we’ll walk at daybreak,
Again I’ll touch the green green grass of home”.
I think you’re ‘avin’ a laff, boyo. Strange we interpret the lyrics so differently.
I think pretty much the entire Richard Buckner album The Hill.
http://www.mergerecords.com/store/store_detail.php?catalog_id=603
This may be too far removed from the actual demise for the OP, but the narrator of My Shit’s Fucked Up is in the physical process of dying, albeit slowly.
Man, that’s a good song.
Nope. The “four grey walls” are the inside of a coffin.
Yes, they’ll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly. Mama, papa, and Mary are going to greet him at the train if he’s being hung?
How many convicts are shipped home before they’re hung?
He’s being given a military funeral. So of course there’s a guard and a padre; the guard is probably going to play “Taps” as the coffin’s lowered into the grave.
There’s a reason this song was so popular during the Vietnam War. I don’t know, but I’m willing to guess you weren’t of age in the late '60s or early '70s.
Arlington, by Trace Adkins. From the POV of a serviceman buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
“Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill” by Johnny Paycheck. About a man on his way to a Murder/suicide.
You realise he was only dreaming, right?