HANG UP YOUR ROBE, SPEAK TRULY | Parody of Tom Dooley | Don Caron & David Cohen

A Parody about Justice Clarence Thomas based on the song Tom Dooley as made famous by The Kingston Trio. Lyrics by David Cohen. Performance by Don Caron

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LYRICS for Hang up your robe, speak truly
By David Cohen

Hang up your robe, Judge Thomas
Hang up your robe and cry
It’s time you paid the piper
For kickbacks you can’t deny

We watched your confirmation
Listened to your swill
And when it was over
We believed Anita Hill

Hang up your robe, speak truly
Step down and just comply
Tell us why your wife, “Ginni”
Texted Meadows on the sly

This time tomorrow
Please give us a sign
Will you be recusing?
Or better yet resign

Hang up your robe, speak truly
Your grifting was not as planned
Hang up your robe, speak truly
It’s high time you should be banned

Hang up your robe, speak truly
Hang up your robe don’t lie
Hang up your robe, speak truly
Your gravy train is dry

This time tomorrow
What we’d like to see
Removal from the SCOTUS
Then heading in to cop a plea

Hang up your robe, speak truly
Hang up your robe and cry
Hang up your robe, speak truly
Looks like, your life’s a lie

Well now, Judge
Hang up your robe, speak truly
Hang up your robe and cry
Hang up your robe, speak truly
Looks like, your time is nigh
Looks like, your time is nigh
Looks like, your time is nigh
Looks like, your time is nigh

ABOUT THE ORIGINAL SONG – Tom Dooley

“Tom Dooley” is a traditional North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina by Tom Dula (whose name in the local dialect was pronounced “Dooley”). One of the more famous murder ballads, a popular hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio, which reached No. 1 in Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and also was top 10 on the Billboard R&B chart, and appeared in the Cashbox Country Music Top 20.

The song was selected as one of the American Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

“Tom Dooley” fits within the wider genre of Appalachian “sweetheart murder ballads”. A local poet named Thomas Land wrote a song about the tragedy, titled “Tom Dooley”, shortly after Dula was hanged. In the documentary Appalachian Journey (1991), folklorist Alan Lomax describes Frank Proffitt as the “original source” for the song, which was misleading in that he did not write it. There are several earlier known recordings, notably one that G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter made in 1929, approximately 10 years before Proffitt cut his own recording.

The Kingston Trio took their version from Frank Warner’s singing. Warner had learned the song from Proffitt, who learned it from his aunt, Nancy Prather, whose parents had known both Laura Foster and Tom Dula. In a 1967 interview, Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio recounts first hearing the song from another performer and then being criticized and sued for taking credit for the song. Supported by the testimony of Anne and Frank Warner, Frank Proffitt was eventually acknowledged by the courts as the preserver of the original version of the song, and the Kingston Trio were ordered to pay royalties to him for their uncredited use of it.

In 1866, Laura Foster was murdered. Confederate veteran Tom Dula, Foster’s lover and the father of her unborn child, was convicted of her murder and hanged May 1, 1868. Foster had been stabbed to death with a large knife, and the brutality of the attack partly accounted for the widespread publicity of the murder and subsequent trial received.

Anne Foster Melton, Laura’s cousin, had been Dula’s lover from the time he was twelve and until he left for the Civil War – even after Anne married an older man named James Melton. When Dula returned, he became a lover again to Anne, then Laura, then their cousin Pauline Foster. Pauline’s comments led to the discovery of Laura’s body and accusations against both Tom and Anne. Anne was subsequently acquitted in a separate trial, based on Dula’s word that she had nothing to do with the killing. Dula’s enigmatic statement on the gallows that he had not harmed Foster but still deserved his punishment led to press speculation that Melton was the actual killer and that Dula simply covered for her.

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