Recorded at Sound Techniques Studio;
Produced by John Wood and Simon Nicol;
Engineered by John Wood;
Design: Roberta Nicol

Musicians

Simon Nicol: guitar, dulcimer;
Dave Mattacks: drums, electric piano;
Dave Swarbrick: fiddle, mandolin;
Dave Pegg: bass, mandolin

with
Philip Sterling-Wall, A.L. Lloyd: reading

Tracks

The LP and the first CD reissue have only five tracks with narrative description instead of titles:

LP Side 1

1. [1-5] John’s reflection on his boyhood, his introduction to Miss Keyes and The Glen, his restlessness, and his struggles with his family, finally successful, to join the navy. (6.19)
2. [6-8] This was the happiest period in his life. All locked set fair for a career until he was stricken with sickness and invalided out of his chosen niche in life. Reluctantly and unhappily he turned to a number of menial occupations and finally returned to the services of Miss Keyes. (10.12)
3. [9-10] Tragedy now strikes hard. The world’s imagination is caught by the brutal senseless of the apparent criminal who slays his kind old mistress. (3.57)

LP Side 2

4. [11-12] John was hardly more than a bewildered observer at his own trial, not being allowed to say more than a few words. The tides of fate wash him to the condemned cell where he waits three sad weeks for his last night on earth. (7.32)
5. [13-15] When it comes, he cannot sleep, but when he does, a strange, prophetic dream comes to him, and helps him to bear the strain of his next day’s ordeal as scaffold and its crew try in vain three times to take his life. (13.20)

All compositions by Fairport Convention except
Sailor’s Alphabet, for which, thanks to Bert Lloyd

2004 CD

1. The Verdict (read by Philip Sterling-Wall) (0.28)
2. Little Did I Think (2.19)
3. I Was Sixteen (Part 1) (1.30)
4. John My Son (0.44)
5. I Was Sixteen (Part 2) (1.18)
6. St Ninian’s Isle / Trumpet Hornpipe (1.14)
7. Sailor’s Alphabet (Roud 21100) (5.50)
8. John Lee (3.05)
9. Newspaper Reading (read by A.L. Lloyd) (0.46)
10. Breakfast in Mayfair (3.10)
11. Trial Song (3.55)
12. Cell Song (3.36)
13. The Time Is Near (2.32)
14. Dream Song (5.24)
15. Wake Up John (Hanging Song) (5.25)

Bonus tracks taken from the 1975 BBC TV programme The Man They Couldn’t Hang (recorded 24 September 1974, broadcast 1 February 1975). The recordings include Jerry Donahue (track 16 and 17) and Sandy Denny (track 17 only):

16. Farewell to a Poor Man’s Son (4.45)
17. Newspaper Reading / Breakfast in Mayfair (3.59)