Songs

He was on his way home from candletop
Been two weeks gone and he thought he'd stop
At webs and have him a drink for he went home to her
Andy wo-lo said hello
He said hi what's a doing
Wo said sit down I got some bad news that's gonna hurt
Said Im your best friend and you know that's right
But your young bride aint home tonight
Since you been gone she's been seeing that amos boy seth
He got mad and he saw red
Andy said boy don't you lose your head
Cause to tell you the truth Ive been with her myself

Chorus:
That's the night the lights went out in georgia
That's the night that they hung an innocent man
Don't trust your soul to no back woods southern lawyer
Cause the judge in the towns got bloodstains on his hand

Andy got scared and left the bar
Walking on home cause he didn't live far you see
Andy didn't have many friends and he just lost him one
Brother thought his wife mustve left town
So he went home and finally found the only thing
Daddy had left him and that was a gun
He went off to andys house
Slipping through the back woods quiet as a mouse
Came upon some tracks too small for andy to make
He looked through the screen at the back porch door
He saw andy lying on the floor
In a puddle of blood and he started to shake

The georgia patrol was making their rounds
So he fired a shot just to flag em down
And a big bellied sheriff grabbed his gun and said
Whyd you do it?

The judge said guilty in a make believe trial
Slapped the sherrif on the back with a smile and said
Suppers waiting at home and I got to get to it

Chorus

They hung my brother before I could say
The tracks he saw while on his way
To andys house and back that night were mine
And his cheatin wife had never left town
And that's one body thatll be found
You see little sister don't miss when she aims her gun

Repeat chorus twice

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/reba+mcentire/#share

I chose this country throwback song because I remember hearing it for the first time and loving it as a child. However, I admit that I had to listen to it a couple of times to realize exactly what was going on. Basically, this man comes home from a vacation and finds out from his best friend that his wife has been cheating on him with not only another man, but his best friend himself. Angry, the man leaves to go get his gun to confront his best friend who also left for home. However, when the man arrives at his best friends house he sees tracks and finds his best friend dead. Turns out, his little sister not only killed his best friend, but his cheating wife. The man fires a shot to get the attention of the sheriff who assumes he was guilty of the crime, arrests him, and takes him to a corrupt judge who sentences him to be hanged that same night. The little sister is never convicted and successfully hid the body of the cheating wife.

This song covers a variety of justice issues. Murder is the obvious one, but the issue of police corruption comes into play as well. Also, the judge can be considered as corrupt for giving him an unjust trial and sentencing the man to be hanged without viewing all the evidence.