I want you to picture something. You're standing
on a wooden platform. It's cold. Maybe it's that
damp English mist. You've got a rope around your
neck. A hood over your head. You can hear the
crowd. The priest is muttering a final prayer.
You brace yourself. The executioner pulls the
lever. And absolutely nothing. The trapdoor just
stays shut. You're still standing there. So they
think, okay, a faulty mechanism. They move you
off. They test it. And it works perfectly. Clunk.
So they put you back on. Hood on. Rope tight.
Pull the lever again. And... Again, nothing.
The Earth just refuses to swallow you. And just
to make sure the universe is really, you know,
making a point, they try it a third time. And
for a third time, the machine fails. It sounds
like a ghost story, doesn't it? But this is a
real historical event. This is the story of John
Babacomlee. The man they couldn't hang. Exactly.
It's one of the most bizarre true crime stories
from the Victorian era. But our way into this
story today is a little different. Very different.
We're not looking at court transcripts. We are
exploring the story through a 1971 album by the
British folk rock legends Fairport Convention.
The album is called Babacomlee. And this isn't
just, you know, a song about a guy. This is a
massive conceptual piece of work. We're talking
about a band known for jigs and reels. Traditional
stuff. Suddenly pivoting to make what is, well,
arguably the first. folk rock opera. It was a
huge risk. I mean, a truly massive commercial
gamble. It went from having chart success to
releasing this continuous grim narrative about
a murder and a botched hanging. Which is a fascinating
mix, isn't it? History, music, and maybe a complete
lack of business sense. The best combination.
I love it. So let's get into the why. Why this
story? Did they just find it in a library? You'd
think so, given how detailed it is. But the origin
of this whole project is almost as strange as
the story of John Lee itself. It all starts with
Dave Swarbrick. The fiddle player. Right. The
fiddle player and vocalist. Swarbrick was a bit
of a collector. You know, he loved old things.
One day he's digging through a dusty old junk
shop. As one does. And he spots this file. Just
a bundle of old papers, newspaper clippings.
Which for a folk musician is basically treasure
anyway. Oh, exactly. But he opens it up and realizes
this isn't random. These clippings are all about
the John Lee case. The murder, the trial, the
failed hanging. But here's the kicker. Okay.
This is where it gets spooky. The file wasn't
put together by some journalist or a history
buff. Who was it? It was compiled by John Babacom
Lee himself. Wait, what? Swarbrick just walks
into a random junk shop and finds the personal
scrapbook of the man the story's about? Signed
and dated by him. 30 January 1908. John Lee had
cut out these articles, bound them together,
and kept them. Swarbrick was literally holding
the primary source material. That is wildly improbable.
It's almost like the story wanted to be found.
It really feels that way. And that discovery
completely changed the project. You know, in
folk music, we talk about the oral tradition.
Right. Songs passed down, changing over time.
It's like a game of telephone over centuries.
The truth gets fuzzy. But here, Fairport wasn't
working from a fuzzy legend. They were working
from the man's own archive. So they weren't just
singers anymore. They were historians, in a way.
They were adapting his scrapbook into a musical
script, documenting a life. So let's look at
that life. The album is structured like a play,
isn't it? It follows a clear timeline. Strictly
chronological. And to really get the music, you
have to understand the arc of Lee's life as the
band lays it out. So act one, where do we start?
He wasn't always this apparent criminal, as the
press called him. No, not at all. The first part
of the album deals with his innocence. It touches
on his boyhood poverty, sure, but it really highlights
his time in the Royal Navy. I remember reading
that the tracks described this as the happiest
period in his life. And you can hear it in the
music. It's got this energy, this sense of purpose.
He's escaped poverty. He has a uniform, a role.
But then... Circumstance hits. He gets sick.
He's invalided out of the Navy. That's such a
brutal turn. You finally get out and then your
own body lets you down. And that's the setup
for the fall. He goes from the structure of the
Navy to just drifting through menial jobs. He's
desperate. And that desperation is what leads
him to the Glanus. Which sounds like the title
of a horror movie. It might as well be. It's
the home of Miss Keys. Lee enters her service.
And that brings us to act two, the crime. Miss
Keys is murdered. Brutally. And the whole mood
of the album shifts here. It stops being about
Lee's inner world and starts reflecting this
external hysteria. The Victorian press went absolutely
wild. I can imagine. Kind old mistress slain
by the villainous servant. It was the 1885 equivalent
of a viral Netflix true crime series. Everybody
had a take. And the music reflects that chaos.
Completely. You've got Dave Swarbrick's fiddle
and instrument, usually associate with, you know,
a happy dance tune. And suddenly it's making
this screeching, claustrophobic sound. It's not
melody. It's pure tension. So that brings us
to the trial. How does the album portray Lee
in all this? Is he fighting for his life? That's
the fascinating part. The sources describe him
as a bewildered observer. The legal system is
just this huge grinding machine, and he's just
watching it happen to him. He's passive. Completely.
The lyrics, the music, it all conveys this sense
of helplessness. He's not a participant. He's
a victim of the process. Which leads him to the
condemned cell and those three sad weeks waiting
to die. And this is where the songwriting gets
incredibly psychological. They're not just saying,
oh, he was sad. They focus on his sleep or lack
of it. And there's this specific moment called
the dream song. Tell me about that. Well, you
have to imagine the strain. You know the exact
date you're going to die. But the album describes
Lee having this strange prophetic dream. It's
almost mystical. A defense mechanism, maybe?
It seems like it. This dream helps him bear the
strain. It's as if his own mind created something
to get him through the horror of it all. It adds
this whole other layer to the story. And then
comes the morning of the execution. The track
Wake Up John. Chilling title, isn't it? It is.
And this is the climax we talked about. The gallows.
The three attempts. The failure. And finally,
a reprieve. He's released because the machine
just refused to work. Let's talk about the format
of this album. Because in 1971, this was unusual.
If I bought this record, I'd expect a list of
tracks on the back. And you would be very confused.
The original LP didn't list any separate tracks.
It was just side one and side two. So you couldn't
skip to your favorite song. No skipping. There
were no bands on the vinyl. Those little gaps
between songs. It was one continuous piece of
music. The band was forcing you to listen to
the whole story. In order. That is a bold move.
Basically saying, sit down and listen to our
opera. It really is. In fact, the book The Electric
Muse argues that this is the first folk rock
opera. That's a huge claim. People always point
to the Who's Tommy. Well, sure. Tommy is the
famous rock opera. Yeah. But in the folk world,
this was completely new. They took traditional
instruments and stretched them over a 40 -minute
conceptual narrative. It wasn't a collection
of songs. It was a single, cohesive piece of
musical theater. I have seen the CD version,
though, and that does have track titles. Oh yeah,
later on they broke it down. For sanity's sake.
The later CDs have titles like The Verdict or
Cell Song, but that was a retroactive change.
The original artistic intent was total immersion.
You're trapped in the story. Just like Lee was
trapped in the cell. So who was in the band at
this point? To pull off something this tight,
you need a really solid lineup. This was the
four Daves plus Simon era, basically. Sounds
like a pub quiz team. It really does. You had
Dave Swarbrick on fiddle and vocals, Dave Pegg
on bass, Dave Metax on drums, and Simon Nicole
on guitar and vocals. A really stripped back
unit. And focused, I imagine. Incredibly focused.
They'd been through a lot of lineup changes,
so this quartet had this almost telepathic connection.
They had to. The music on this album shifts constantly
to follow the story. If they weren't locked in,
the whole thing would just fall apart. So you've
got a tight band, a killer story, a groundbreaking
format. This thing must have been a massive hit.
You would think so. I mean, their previous album,
Angel Delight, was a church success. They had
all this momentum. And then they drop a concept
album about a Victorian hanging. And the market
just went, nope. How bad was it? Pretty bad.
In the U .S., Babacoon Lee peaked at number 195
on the Billboard chart. 195. That's barely even
on the chart. It was a commercial disappointment,
to put it mildly. And you have to remember the
context. The average listener wanted another
angel delight. They wanted catchy folk rock.
Instead, they got this grim, complex, demanding
historical drama. It's that classic tension,
isn't it? Art versus commerce. The critics got
the ambition, but the record -buying public just
wanted something to tap their feet to. Exactly.
But the story of the album didn't end there.
There's this interesting little postscript. The
Lost Tracks? Right. So a few years later, in
1974, the BBC decides to make a documentary about
John Lee. A proper one. Yeah, narrated by Melvin
Bragg. And they asked the band to provide some
music. But by then, the lineup had changed again.
Simon Nicole had actually left. But he came back
just for this project. And... And this is the
holy grail for folk fans. Sandy Denny was involved.
No way. Sandy Denny is folk royalty. She is the
voice of British folk rock. She sang on a track
called Breakfast in Mayfair just for this documentary.
So those tracks ended up on later reissues of
the album. It's a lovely little coda. And the
album itself, it seems like it got a second life.
It didn't just disappear. No, it became a cult
classic. The real vindication came in 2011. for
the 40th anniversary. Fairport decided to perform
the entire album, start to finish, live. That's
a huge undertaking. They did it on tour and at
their big annual festival, Cropperty. And the
crowd absolutely loved it. It kind of proved
the album wasn't a failure. It was just... Ahead
of its time. Or maybe it just needed an audience
that was finally ready to sit down and really
listen. It's amazing how time changes our idea
of success. A flop in 1971. A masterpiece today.
And it just highlights what made that band so
special. They could have played it safe, made
Angel to Light part two, but they followed the
story. They honored that dusty file from the
junk shop. They put the history ahead of the
hit single. I keep coming back to that central
moment, the machine failing. It's the pivot point
of his entire life. We live in a world where
we just expect things to work. You know, you
flip a switch, the light comes on. We trust mechanics.
Rely on them completely. But in this story, the
mechanics failed. three times and in the narrative
that failure isn't seen as a glitch it seemed
as a miracle divine intervention fate stepping
in it raises this strange provocative question
for me in john lee's story a rusty bolt or a
swollen piece of wood a simple mechanical error
becomes the hand of god it saves a life it certainly
changed the course of his history So how much
of our history is just that? How many huge events,
how many lives saved or lost just come down to
a small physical thing not working the way it
was designed to? That's a big thought. We like
to think history is about grand decisions and
powerful people. But maybe sometimes it really
is just a lever that gets stuck. Was it a miracle
or was it just bad maintenance? And if the result
is that you get to live. Does the difference
even matter? I guess for John Lee and for us
listening to his story, the result is the only
thing that does. Something to think about. Thanks
for exploring the strange, dusty, and ultimately
resilient world of Babacombe Lee with us. It
was a pleasure. We'll catch you on the next deep
dive.