The Hanging Tree

• By: James Newton Howard, Jennifer Lawrence
• Album: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 Soundtrack

Lyrics:

Vocabulary in this song:

Vocabulary	Meanings
tree /triː/ A1	noun - a perennial woody plant
man /mæn/ A1	noun - an adult male human being
murdered /ˈmɜːrdərd/ B2	verb - to kill (someone) unlawfully and with premeditation
strange /streɪndʒ/ B1	adjective - unusual or surprising; difficult to understand or explain
things /θɪŋz/ A1	noun - an object that one need not, cannot, or does not wish to give a specific name to
midnight /ˈmɪdnaɪt/ B1	noun - twelve o'clock at night
hanging /ˈhæŋɪŋ/ B2	adjective - suspended from above
dead /ded/ A2	adjective - no longer alive
love /lʌv/ A1	noun - an intense feeling of affection
flee /fliː/ B2	verb - run away from a place or situation of danger
run /rʌn/ A1	verb - to move at a speed faster than a walk
free /friː/ A2	adjective - not under the control or power of someone else; able to do or say what one wants
necklace /ˈnekləs/ B1	noun - an ornamental chain or string of beads, jewels, or links worn round the neck.
hope /hoʊp/ A2	noun - a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen

Grammar:

• Are you, are you comin' to the tree?

  ➔ Present Continuous for future arrangements (colloquial)

  ➔ Uses the present continuous tense, "are you comin'", to inquire about a planned event in the near future. The more standard phrasing would be "Are you coming...?", dropping the 'g' is colloquial. It suggests the speaker expects the listener to participate.

• Where they strung up a man, they say, who murdered three

  ➔ Relative clause with "who", passive voice implied in "strung up"

  ➔ "who murdered three" is a relative clause modifying "a man". "Strung up" implies someone else strung the man up (passive voice), although the agent isn't specified.

• Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be

  ➔ Inversion with auxiliary "did" for emphasis; "would" expressing hypothetical situation

  ➔ "Strange things did happen" is an emphatic form of "Strange things happened". "Would" expresses a conditional or hypothetical situation: if we met, it wouldn't be stranger than what has already occurred.

• Where dead man called out for his love to flee?

  ➔ Infinitive of purpose ("to flee") after a verb of motion ("called out")

  ➔ The phrase "to flee" explains the purpose of the dead man's calling out. He called out *in order to* his love flee.

• Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free?

  ➔ Indirect speech ("told you to run"); "so that" implied with "so"; conditional "would"

  ➔ "Told you to run" reports a past instruction. "So we'd both be free" indicates purpose or result, implying "so that" we would both be free. "Would" expresses a conditional result in the past.