“The Hanging Tree” song found in the Mockingjay book by Suzanne Collins will appear in the first part of the film adaptation.
Mockingjay director Francis Lawrence confirmed in a new interview on Monday that Lawrence performed “The Hanging Tree” for the movie which opens in theaters on November 1. What’s more: the popular folk band The Lumineers, best known for their song “Ho Hey,” wrote the melody for Lawrence.
Said the director to the Radio Times, “The Lumineers sent the melody over and then we had a vocal coach, who sort of shifted the key for Jen’s voice. Then she started working with Jen once or twice – Jen didn’t really want to do too much of the training [he laughs] –but she recorded it for me as a test so I could hear it. I was worried, I really thought we were going to have to do a bunch of pitch shifting, but she sounded great. What you hear in the movie is what she did on the day in the quarry.”
Lawrence says that his star wasn’t interested in singing. “She’d probably tell you it was her least favourite day,” he said. “She was horrified to sing, she cried a little bit in the morning before she had to sing.”
In the book by Collins, “The Hanging Tree” is a song that Katniss learns from her father. A sample of the lyrics are below:
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 treeAre 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 Article Continues Below
We think that this moment in the book is one scene that benefited from the film being split into two parts. This could potentially be a nice slow-moving scene where we see Katniss slowly and softly sings the tune to Pollux.
The Lummineers aren’t strangers to The Hunger Games franchise. They wrote “Gale Song” for the Catching Fire soundtrack in 2013.
Earlier today we shared a new clip from Mockingjay, Part 1 in which Katniss meets Cressida and her team, including Pollux the avox.
“The Hanging Tree” is on the Mockingjay, Part 1 score. Pre-order now ahead of its November 24 release!
Source: Radio Times
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