I agree that this is a a great song, a well-crafted song, a fun song to sing, and one very much in the tradition of Appalachian ballads.

But--it's been done an awful lot by bluegrass bands, and requested of them even when they had not planned to do it..

And so, at a bluegrass festival years ago I heard an adjustment to part of the lyrics of the last verse:

"Now the scaffold is high and eternity near
She stood in the crowd and had hotdogs and beer."

I can't remember if, having sung that, they even finished the song.