Tunesmith: It's a damn good thing that lad didn't touch your Stetson hat!

Re: message from George. I suppose George heard the interview on CBC last night with Derek McCulloch, author of the graphic-novel version. McCulloch says that his one original observation concerning the song, is that in recordings by white singers, such as Woody Guthrie, it's "we" that hanged Stackalee, while for black singers, it's "they" that hanged the bad man. He also claims that those same white singers do not seem to identify Stackalee as a black man - he did not explain the basis of that insight .... Just repeating what McCulloch said in the interview ....

Re: the hat. I did see a version in print somewhere decades ago in which the hat is explicitly characterised as "magic".