Uploaded August 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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My interpretation of a few verses of a song from the Hunger Games prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins. This is one of many songs sung by the character Lucy Gray Baird, a tribute from District 12 who is mentored by a teenage Coriolanus Snow. Throughout the book, Baird sings songs clearly influenced by Appalachian folk songs, but this one is her own- about her resentment towards a lover who’s left her.

Because I am the one who looks out when you’re leaping
I am the one who knows how you were brave
And I am the one who heard what you said sleeping
I’ll take that and more when I go to my grave

And I am the one who you let you see weeping
I know the soul that you struggled to save
Too bad I’m the bet that you lost in the reaping
Now what will you do when I go to my grave?