‘Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ Reveals ‘The Hanging Tree’ Song’s Origins

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

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• “The Hanging Tree” is a powerful and rebellious song that becomes an anthem in the Hunger Games series, with significant consequences for the world of Panem.
• The song is deeply connected to Katniss Everdeen, who remembers it from her deceased father and sings it as a symbol of resistance against the Capitol.
• In the prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the origin of the song is revealed by Lucy Gray Baird, who wrote and performed it as a ballad inspired by tragedy and defiance.

A murder ballad and a rebel anthem, “The Hanging Tree” is a haunting song that Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) performs in the original Hunger Games film series, and it becomes, like her Mockingjay status, a rebellious spark to engulf the other Districts. It’s also the song that you can’t help but hit replay once it finishes. In the prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023), the song returns and ties into the backstory of a soon-to-be tyrant, teen Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth). The reappearance answers the question about who wrote it and what inspired it, with substantial ramifications in the world of Panem, a place that has many extremes, between the oppressed and the elite. Behind the lingering power of “The Hanging Tree,” two girls wield it like a weapon as they stand up against the dictatorship of the Capitol that annually forces children to fight to the death.

The Connection Between Katniss and “The Hanging Tree”

“The Hanging Tree” is heard in Mockingjay: Part 1 (2014), while Katniss is sitting in the middle of a quarry. She is recorded for another propaganda video, her raw voice turned into a battle anthem to inspire the uprising in the Districts. Katniss explains she remembers the song from her deceased father, who had worked as a coal miner. She would sing it with her sister Primrose (Willow Shields), until her mother demanded she stop, banning it from the household due to the anti-Capitol themes around it. The lyrics are simple and poignant, direct yet mysterious.

Are you, are you comin’ to the tree?

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

Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be

If we met at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you comin’ to the tree?

Where dead man called out for his love to flee?

Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be

If we met at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you comin’ 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 at midnight in the hanging tree.

Are you, are you comin’ 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 at midnight in the hanging tree.

Later in Mockingjay: Part 1, Plutarch (Philip Seymour Hoffman) takes credit for a small audio revision that changes the line “necklace of rope,” into “necklace of hope.” Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) uses his usual sarcasm when complimenting him, but the change is purposeful. In the next scene, a horde of District 5 citizens march to the dam with rushing water that works to provide electricity to the Capitol. Many of them lose their lives to Peacekeepers, but others successfully detonate bombs to destroy the infrastructure, plunging the Capitol into darkness. The score that started with Katniss’ singing, builds to an epic, triumphant surge thanks to composer James Newton Howard, and it is spectacular to hear. While original author Suzanne Collins wrote the lyrics, the melody was created by the folk-rock band the Lumineers. Off the screen, the song went on to be a big hit for Hunger Games fans.

It was playing everywhere, from a radio edit to iTunes downloads, plus earning the Number 12 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Jennifer Lawrence was not a fan of her role in the song, and she hated performing it for the camera according to director Francis Lawrence in an interview for TheWrap. The lack of a professional singing voice is exactly what this version needed though, as thematically, Katniss is still finding her way as the Mockingjay. Her character is constantly thrown into circumstances she has to figure her way out of to survive. The timing of when Katniss sings this is just as critical after she has seen her home of District 12 annihilated into resembling little more than rubble. District 12 is a key place associated with “The Hanging Tree,” as revealed in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ Shows How Deadly the Capitol Is

The prequel adds new revelations to the series, and as fate would have it, President Snow’s (Donald Sutherland) distaste for mockingjays and rebellious music started when he was younger, long before the 75th Hunger Games. Coriolanus grew up incredibly privileged and wealthy, only to see what happens when his family is forcibly downsized. As a teen, he is tasked to be among the first mentors to tributes in the Hunger Games, given the responsibility over Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) from District 12. Unsure if he is putting her survival interests over his attempts to win a prize, Coriolanus attempts to cheat, and this saves Lucy’s life in the arena. However, there is no true victor. Lucy is brought back to her home and Coriolanus is punished by being made to enlist as a Peacekeeper, a far cry from the lavish society advancement he desired by being the winning mentor. Without much to live for, Coriolanus gets himself placed in District 12 in hopes of finding Lucy again, but the deadliness of the Capitol plays a major part in destroying the love story between Coriolanus and Lucy Gray.

As a Peacekeeper, Coriolanus is brought in as a guard to an execution at the mining district’s execution location, with a gnarled tree where one of the limbs has been turned into a gallows. Arlo (Raphael Zari), a coal miner, has been arrested and charged with the murder of three individuals, due to a bomb he set in the mines in retaliation against the Capitol. As the song says, they “strung up a man” who “murdered three.” Before he is hung, his lover Lil (Mona Vojacek Koper) rushes out of the crowd of District citizens, screaming in horror as her lover is hung. Arlo used his last moment to yell for her to escape, as reflected in the lyrics, “called out for his love to flee.” She is soon arrested and Coriolanus is left to hear the genetically enhanced jabberjay birds carrying Arlo’s death cries up into the sky. Who else saw the execution? The first Hunger Games victor from District 12, Lucy Gray.

Lucy Gray Created “The Hanging Tree” Song

She was inspired by the tragedy to turn it into a ballad. Lucy Gray, like actress Rachel Zegler, is a professional singer, unlike the Katniss-Jennifer Lawrence performance. It’s an important distinction, since music is not sparse but nearly extinct in Katniss’ era. Lucy Gray makes a living out of performing with her fellow Covey family at public venues and is the one who personally wrote “The Hanging Tree,” singing a rendition to herself in a meadow where Coriolanus meets her. As Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes reaches the end, the song earns another meaning after the death of someone close to Coriolanus.

The doomed Sejanus (Josh Andrés Rivera) can’t deal with his own complicity in the Capitol’s wickedness, from living there and being a fellow mentor. He joins Coriolanus to be a Peacekeeper in District 12, where he starts to plan to do his part in rescuing the imprisoned Lil. Coriolanus, desperate to win back the Capitol’s trust, records Sejanus’ confession of his rescue mission with a jabberjay and this seals the teen’s fate. He is sentenced to be hung, killed due to believing Coriolanus was an ally. He keeps this as a dark secret, knowing it would destroy the trust he has with Lucy Gray, which is exactly what it does.

How ‘The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’ Sets Up ‘The Hunger Games’ Trilogy

At the end of the film, Lucy Gray learns of Coriolanus’ role in his “friend’s” murder when he accidentally lets enough slip out, and she puts it together. At a point where Coriolanus realizes he can return to his pampered life, he decides to kill Lucy Gray to cover his tracks. They have a cat-and-mouse chase in dense woods, where Lucy Gray adeptly uses the landscape to escape. Like jabberjays, mockingjays can mimic too. Lucy Gray lets a pack of mockingjays carry the melody of “The Hanging Tree” to cover her footsteps and mockingly declare Snow’s guilt. She disappears and Snow never knows her fate, the eventual president of Panem will grow up to hate the bird species, and District 12 will become a place of contempt for him.

Although the prequel takes place decades before Katniss’ trilogy, the legacy of Lucy Gray Baird attached to “The Hanging Tree” survives, in the music, and through fellow district member, the Girl on Fire, who will go on to set the Capitol’s tyranny ablaze. Director Francis Lawrence, from TheWrap interview, believes there is an ancestral connection too. “She’s not related to Lucy Gray,” he explained, “but she is supposedly — I think that Suzanne (Collins) told me that she is related to Maude Ivory, the little blonde one.” Maude (Vaughan Reilly) was a young member to the Covey band, and was a Baird cousin, yet one more way Lucy Gray wasn’t forgotten. Although we never see an older President Snow’s reaction to hearing Katniss sing Lucy’s song, and despite the fact Suzanne Collins wrote the original trilogy without the prequel in mind, it is satisfying to think that President Snow would feel haunted by Lucy’s defying spirit, on a countdown to his downfall.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is now in theaters.

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