On Record Against The Death Penalty

By Joe Heim
Special to The Washington Post
March 20, 2002

There is nothing quite as rare these days as a CD containing an activist political or social agenda. Popular musicians seem afraid or perhaps not even interested in commenting on current events for a single track, much less an entire album. Even the Sept. 11 attacks and ensuing war haven't produced even a handful of notable songs. Rap and hip-hop artists, once the principal conveyors of the street's political thought and anger, are now mostly cartoonish thugs glorifying criminality or wallowing in nihilistic excess and, ultimately, inconsequence. There may be a political message in that, but it's not intentional.

"The Executioner's Last Songs," a new album on Chicago's alt-country Bloodshot Records label, makes no bones about its political position. "To Benefit the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project" is stamped plainly on the cover. And yet this collection of 18 songs -- traditional tunes, country standards and a few originals -- makes its case in the most interesting fashion.

Though Tony Fitzpatrick's half-song, half-sermon "Idiot Whistle" points out that in Illinois "17 men just walked off of death row after being exonerated by DNA testing," for the most part these songs aren't about innocents being sent to slaughter but rather about murderers and moral wretches, maybe not all monsters, but certainly flawed men and women, jailed for grisly crimes and often unrepentant.

Leading off with the particularly chilling "Knoxville Girl," Brett Sparks doesn't engender much sympathy when he sings, "I took her by her golden curls and I dragged her 'round and 'round / Throwing her into the river that flows from Knoxville town." Darker fare follows. Longtime death penalty opponent Steve Earle sings "Tom Dooley," another traditional song about a murderous paramour, and on Cole Porter's "Miss Otis Regrets," Jenny Toomey's absolutely haunting delivery feels like a visit from the grave.

The country covers included here are especially well chosen, with Rosie Flores singing Hank Williams's desperate "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" and Edith Frost performing a straightforward version of Merle Haggard's mournful death row lament "Sing Me Back Home."

And on her cover of Ralph Stanley's "O Death," Diane Izzo provides a distinctly different performance than the harrowing a cappella version for which Stanley recently received a Grammy Award. Another highlight is Chris Ligon's "The Great State of Texas," which presents the gentle musings of a man about to be executed. It is both heartbreaking and funny and, finally, completely depressing: "Say goodbye to my buddies and to you my dear wife, 'cause the great state of Texas is taking my life."

But why fight the death penalty with so many songs about coldblooded killers? In his liner notes, Jon Langford, best known as a founding member of the Mekons and whose Pine Valley Cosmonauts back the album's artists, offers this explanation: "Here's a little historical trawling and purging to aid and support the long-civilizing march against the death penalty in this earth's richest land (lest it be condemned to repeat its misdeed forever)."

These songs are reminders, then, of the present, not the past. And rather than explain away murderous deeds, these songs puts them in their starkest terms. Instead of making excuses for killers, the album seems to argue a message that, particularly in vengeful times, not everyone wants to hear: Spare them anyway.

(To hear a free Sound Bite from this album, call Post-Haste at 202-334-9000 and press 8161.)
The bloodshot records site is: www.bloodshotrecords.com

© 2002 The Washington Post Company