How the Song “The Hanging Tree” Links The Hunger Games and “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”

“The Hanging Tree” is a plea from one lover to another to come meet them at the titular tree. They ask their lover to meet them there at midnight so they can run away together. The narrator also tells the story of a man who was hung from the tree, giving the tree its moniker. “The dead man called out for his love to flee,” they sing.

But Katniss eventually comes to realize in the books that the narrator of the song is actually the man who was killed, and he’s calling for his love to come to him and die too. He wants her to make her own necklace of rope – her own noose – to join him.

In “Mockingjay – Part 1,” Katniss is followed by a film crew who are making pro-rebellion propaganda. They film her singing the song, and it’s quickly broadcast throughout the country and used as a rallying cry by rebels. But the original books give us more insight into the song’s history and role in the narrative.

In the books, Katniss remembers that her dad (who has died by the time the books begin) would often sing “The Hanging Tree” and taught it to her and her sister, Prim (Willow Shields). When her mom found out, she was furious and banned the song. Peeta also remembers Katniss’s dad singing the song, and it’s a positive memory for him of their past.

Katniss ultimately reconsiders the song and realizes the narrator is just trying to protect his love. The song also appears to be banned in all of Panem because the real “lover” is not one person, but all would-be rebels, who ought to fight for freedom, even if it means death.

The book “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” reveals that Lucy wrote “The Hanging Tree.” Spoilers: Lucy bases the lyrics on a real man in District 12 who’s executed after being blamed for the deaths of three men. The song also alludes to the romantic connection between Lucy and Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth in the new film and Donald Sutherland in the original four). They agree to meet at the hanging tree to run away together.

Lucy is a member of a group called the Covey, nomads known for their musical talent. After the events of “The Balled of Songbirds and Snakes,” the Covey are banned from performing ever again. Katniss’s dad then only could have learned the song through a network of ancestors who passed it through the generations in secret.

Suzanne Collins and The Lumineers wrote the song for the Hunger Games films, though the in-universe author is Lucy Gray Baird.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three?
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee?
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free?
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree