Dead Men Never Die
"Dead Men Never Die" is a song first recorded for Leon's 1966 LP, Songs For Sceptical Circles, but it has been re-recorded a number of times. The lyric seems to have been conceived as a response to the escalation of the Vietnam War, but takes as its cue several atrocities which occurred in Leon's earlier lifetime. Indeed, the timeline of the song matches his own chronology, beginning with war breaking out when the narrator is five (which Leon would have been at the start of World War II), and proceeding in five-year intervals of real time ("five, ten, fifteen, twenty...").
"This is a song about growing up, growing numb and going sane. The mad, like Swift, have no protection." - LR (Look Here (songbook), 1968)
"I wrote this in the mid-sixties and, reviewing it now, I wish I had written the chorus differently." - LR (Turning Silence Into Song (sleevenotes), 2004)
"I wrote this in the mid-sixties and, reviewing it now, I wish I had written the chorus differently." - LR (Turning Silence Into Song (sleevenotes), 2004)
Recordings
Version 1 (1966)
Version 2 (1970)
Version 3 (1975)
Version 4 (2004) With Martin Carthy
Version 2 (1970)
Version 3 (1975)
Version 4 (2004) With Martin Carthy