It was Xmas of 2002 when I wrote this one. I was housesitting my brother's place in Eugene for a few weeks. Alone. It was supposed to be a nice romantic getaway for two, but she changed her mind at the last minute, putting the chill through me, as I perceived she didn't really want to spend that much time alone with me. Imagine!!

I felt sure this was a sign that things were changing between us and it wouldn't be long before...Well, I was fatalistic enough to say, fine, if it ends it ends, but it was that feeling that unpleasant change is in the wind that got me feeling like a condemned man. And so it was, but as a slow decay not to be completed for another, oh, six years.

At the time I was reading—re-reading probably—one of George Fraser MacDonald's Flashman books that used the euphemism "doing the Newgate Hornpipe" for a public hanging. Newgate Prison was the spectator spot in London for watching executions. Also, in the Tarot deck, the Hanged Man card is a portent of change.

After the phone call finding out she wasn't coming down after all, I let out my angst by playing guitar and came up with the riff and words and tune all at once for "Newgate Hornpipe."

It's been a very popular song of mine, probably just for the sound of it. I don't know that anybody ever got the proper meaning of the lyrics, but that's all fine. Any level anybody enjoys my stuff on is fine by me.