D.R.#823

[davidhanners]

So I was in one of my usual "up" moods yesterday and decided it was time to write an uplifting, "postive" and moral-laden song about a psychopath. I was hoping I could write a song that the touring company of "Up With People" might want to perform. So I went to the "Executed Offenders" section of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's website and picked some guy pretty much at random, clicked on his name and read about his case and turned it into a song. I had been hoping to do a song that incorporated something from the protagonist's last words, but this guy just said, "I'm ready. I'm ready." Maybe I'll write a chorus someday.

Seriously, there isn't much redeeming about the song, but not every song has to have a moral or a lesson. And some people are just bad. The title refers to "Death Row #823," which was this guy's number on death row. It's all true except for a couple of details altered for rhyme or meter; i.e., the execution started about 6:30 p.m. and he was pronounced dead at 6:38, and I moved stuff up half an hour because "6:08" fit the meter better than "6:38." As if I spend sleepless nights worrying about meter....


D.R.#823
© 2007 by David Hanners

My name is James Roy Knox
I'm as unrepentant as they come
I ain't thought a kind thought
Since I was born in '51

Can't say I had a hard life
No harder'n other men
Now I'm strapped down to this gurney
And the road’s about the end

Was raised in Alabama
Did time there in the pen
Got a job hangin' drywall
Down in Galveston

Some men just find it easy
Avoid sin and earthly vice
But I took a darker path
And I never did think twice

Joe Sanchez owned a drug store
Had a smile for all he met
I walked in and he was a dead man
He just didn't know it yet

I wanted drugs and money
Like a fool Sanchez said "no"
But you don’t argue with my .38
And he crumpled to the floor

Grabbed some vials of Demerol
Fifteen dollars from the till
Never gave Sanchez a second thought
And I guess I never will

The cops eventually caught me
I was snitched on by a pal
He got jammed up on some felony
I was his ticket out

I didn't act in self-defense
Was not abused as a child
But I sure as hell was guilty
And I said so at my trial

Lawyers talk of justice
Families talk of pain
Some people just are evil
It's been that way since Cain

Final hour drew near
No appeal on which to wait
They let the drugs flow at 6 p.m.
I was dead by 6:08

[Cornflake]

It's powerful, David.

As you've written it, there seems to be nothing human about this guy. Maybe that's what you think and what you intended. If it were mine, I'd consider a line or two suggesting that there was some humanity there...something that would allow us at least a little flash of recognition of ourselves in him. When this guys dies in your song, I feel like a mad dog has just been put down, thank goodness.

[Marshall]

It's compellingly told.

The cops eventually caught me
I was snitched on by a pal
He got jammed up on some felony
I was his ticket out

, doesn't rhyme. (If you care).

I don't like "I was dead by 6:08." Hearing his voice after death, is not a reward this listener wants to hear. Unless he represents something else (like pure evil; Satan [?]) Maybe; It'll be over by 6:08.

Of course, then, maybe you want to make the evil linger. (and represent something ?)

It doesn't have to have a moral. It can be a slice-of-life thing. We know there are characters out there like that. Though, we wonder why ? I suppose you can let the listener ask/answer his own questions.

It might be nice to hint at some causes for his behavior, though. We. listeners, want to think that characters like this aren't totally born; that some cross roads event in their life nudges them over a precipice.

[davidhanners]

Some of the points are well-taken. (Or taken well. Or something like that.) for example, I'm now wondering if the last line shouldn't be "He was dead by 6:08." Or maybe I could look at having the narrator be someone other than Knox. I'll have to give it some thought.

Maybe there's something to the fact I wrote it on my lunch hour two days after the VTech shootings. Having interviewed plenty of folks on death row over the years (not Knox, though) I would posit that some people are just bad. Indeed, some came from really screwed-up childhoods and grew up with a really skewed view of right and wrong and life. There are truly people who have no empathy or regard for the feelings of others. They have no reluctance to inflict suffering, and they generally regard it as the victim's fault. In fact, in this tune, one of the facts I left out was that this guy blamed the victim. When someone asked him later why he shot the guy, Knox replied that he did it because the guy was "ignorant" because he refused to hand over the drugs. And because he was "ignorant," Knox had to shoot him. So it was the victim's fault. Fairly classic psychopathic behavior.

One of the things I was hoping to go for in the song was that sometimes there aren't reasons for why things happen, or at least no reasons that rational, moral people can understand. Plenty of folks have screwed-up childhoods, but they don't wind up killing people. I had given some thought to sticking in a verse to that regard, but the thing clocks in at 11 verses as it is, and I'm rapidly getting up there in sea-shanty territory, length-wise.

The written words in the verse "The cops eventually caught me...." don't rhyme on paper, but you have to remember I still have that lazy Texas drawl and when I sing it, it rhymes enough to get by. Or at least it's not un-rhyming (though I doubt that's a word) enough to jar the listener.

[Cornflake]

In light of your explanation, I wouldn't change it.

But I have to say I have never met anyone who was entirely evil, and I've dealt with serial rapists, killers and real estate developers. I've seen people who had scary defects and should never have been let out on the streets again. But there was always something human there.

[davidhanners]

After giving it some thought overnight, and running through the song a couple of different ways, I think I'll probably keep the last verse the way it is. I believe it would be too jarring to do the song in the first-person and then switch it to "He was dead by 6:08" in the last line. And the rest of the song isn't easily changed to having a different narrator. Keeping the last line in the first person adds a from-the-grave spookiness quality to it.

I would agree, Cornflake, that most people do have some good on them, even the very bad ones. But I think there is a small percentage of psychopaths who are totally lacking in even a smidgen of empathy. If they're being good, it's just because they see good behavior as a momentary means of getting what they want out of someone. The second that goodness stops working for them, they'll switch to bad behavior and not give it a second thought.

I did love the line about real estate developers, though. That should be the next song....

[Marshall]

"serial rapists, killers and real estate developers", is a great line.

Yeah. Changing tenses doesn't make sense. "from-the-grave spookiness" is probably a good/cool thing.

I don't know enough about psychology to say anything definitive. But I suspect there are circumstances in even a psychopath's life that set them off in the direction they go. Doesn't justify anything. Probably the ones who receive some level of affection growing up turn into the successful real estate developers.