“I’ve Been All Around This World,” also sung as “Been All Around This World” and, in one branch of the song, “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me,” is a traditional song that circulated in the South and Ozarks. One of the earliest printed versions was collected in 1917 from Minnie Doyal of Arlington, Missouri, who called it “The Gambler.” Her version used the “Hang me, oh hang me” verse as a chorus. Vance Randolph collected another that year from Billy Laws of Argenta, Arkansas, who said it was originally a much longer ballad about a murderer hanged at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the 1870s.
Later versions go in two directions. Alan Lomax recorded Justis Begley, the sheriff of Hazard, Kentucky, singing it as “I’ve Been All Around This World” in 1937, and Grandpa Jones recorded a similar version in Cincinnati in the summer of 1944; King issued it in February 1946 on 524, backed with “Our Worlds Are Not the Same.” The shorter “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” text was sung by David McIntosh at the National Folk Festival in 1937 and recorded by Sam Hinton in 1961. Dave Van Ronk included it on Folksinger in 1963, and the Coen brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) opens with Oscar Isaac singing it.
The words of the Blue Ridge version are those of an outlaw on the run. He takes his stand on the mountain with a rifle on his shoulder and a six-shooter in his hand, calls to Lulu to open the door before he has to walk in with his old forty-four, and asks to be hanged so that he can be dead and gone, since he has been all around this world. Bluegrass bands took it up later. Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys recorded it for Cold Wind (Rounder, 1983), with Joe Val on mandolin and Dave Haney, Val and Karl Lauber singing, and Hot Rize recorded it on In Concert (Flying Fish, 1984), with Tim O’Brien singing lead. Jerry Garcia and David Grisman recorded it with Jim Kerwin on bass for the album they titled Been All Around This World (Acoustic Disc, 2004).
