Songs sung by the dead or dying

[eschereal]

The Parting Glass – Shaun Davey, Sinnead O’Connor, others, classic Irish wake song.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@silenus

“Knockin On Heavens Door” - Warren Zevon

And, arguably, “My Ride’s Here.”

[gaffa]

@NitroPress

And, arguably, “My Ride’s Here.”

Easier to list all the Warren Zevon songs that weren’t about death.

[Malacandra]

@sweetie pea

(Joins multiple dopers listening to Green Green Grass Of Home. Tries to be inconspicuous in wiping eyes.)

(You’re excused a manly sniffle, but be quiet about it. :')

[TheChileanBlob]

One Last Time by Dusty Drake, is about a man calling his wife from Flight 93 on Sept 11. A real tear-jerker. The twist is you think he’s calling to tell her he’s leaving her for another woman until the last verse.

[Peter_Morris]

Another just-about-to-be-hanged song:

The Men They Couldn’t Hang The Colours

[Hazle_Weatherfield]

Sharp Knife of a Short life by The Band Perry.

[Saltire]

For the medievalists: The Burden of the Crown.

[Rain_Soaked]

Mark Knopfer: Dream of the Drowned Submariner

[Mehitabel]

I guess some of the songs from Sondheim’s ASSASSINS would qualify; in one of them, The Ballad of Booth, Booth sings his own imagined eulogy and then shoots himself at the end. And Giuseppe Zangara is electrocuted and Charles Guiteau is hanged at the end of their main songs, but they’re being executed.

[Labdad]

“Sister Morphine” by the Rolling Stones:

'Cause you know and I know in the morning I’ll be dead
Yeah, and you can sit around, yeah and you can watch all the
Clean white sheets stained red.

[cochrane]

@cjepson

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”).

Sorry. Didn’t notice it.

[Ludovic]

Some interpretations of “Bohemian Rhapsody” would qualify, where “a man” that the singer “just killed” is actually himself.

[Magicicada]

@Malacandra

(You’re excused a manly sniffle, but be quiet about it. :')

(Wails) But I’m a GIRL!!!

[SCAdian]

What? No love for Rolf Harris?

*There’s an old Australian stockman, lying, dying
And he gets himself up on one elbow
And he turns to his mates, who are all gathered 'round him
And he says

“Watch me wallaby’s feed, mate…”*

[Fear_Itself]

Last Meal, by Asleep At The Wheel

[42fish]

“Love Vigilantes” by New Order

Then I looked into her hand
And I saw the telegram
That said I was a brave, brave man
But that I was dead

[Leaffan]

@SCAdian

What? No love for Rolf Harris?

*There’s an old Australian stockman, lying, dying
And he gets himself up on one elbow
And he turns to his mates, who are all gathered 'round him
And he says

“Watch me wallaby’s feed, mate…”*

I thought my parents were the only ones outside of Australia who ever owned a Rolf Harris album.

[Registered_at_Last]

@Suburban_Plankton

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?

Here is another … almost. It was originally written and recorded before she was diagnosed with what was ultimately terminal cancer. I first heard Lhasa’s “Soon this Space will be too Small” shortly before she died. Hereis her explanation of her song as told by her after her diagnosis. Brings a lump to my throat every time. Hauntingly prophetic when you realize it was written and sung by a woman destined to die of cancer at 37.

[Reepicheep]

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Lord Randall by now.