I came to town to search for gold, and I brought with me a memory, and I seemed to hear the night wind cry. Oh, hang your dreams on the hanging tree, your dreams of love that can never be, hang your faded dreams on the hanging tree. I searched for gold, and I found my gold, and I found a girl who loved just me, and wished that I could love her too. But I'd left my heart on the hanging tree, I'd left my heart with a memory, and the faded dream on the hanging tree. Now there were men who craved my gold, and they meant to take my gold from me, when a man is gone he needs no gold. So they carried me to the hanging tree, to join my dreams and the memory, yes they carried me to the hanging tree. To really live you must almost die, it happened just that way with me, they took the gold and they set me free. And I walked away from the hanging tree, I walked away from the hanging tree, and my own true love, oh yes she walked with me. And when I knew that the hanging tree was a tree of life, new life for me, a tree of whole new hope for me, a tree of love, new love for me. The hanging tree, the hanging tree, the hanging tree.