Lyrics to
I Cheat The Hangman

Released by The Doobie Brothers in 1975
From the Album: Stampede |

This version of I Cheat The Hangman was released by The Doobie Brothers in 1975.

Visit the The Doobie Brothers Lyrics profile at Decade Lyrics - it has the I Cheat The Hangman lyrics as well as the rest of the songs by The Doobie Brothers.

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The days grow short, the nights are gone
Since you were here, I can’t go on
I cried for you, to no avail
Now my life runs cold when the night winds wail
But I cheat the hangman, cheated him many times before
The bell that tolls the hour has turned sweet lips to sour
Yes, I cheat the hangman and even when life has flown away
I leave a kiss behind
The rain that fell upon my stone
Like tears you cry I shared alone
I walk the night, I cannot sleep
The love you spend you cannot reap

The glow of love will then shine
Lighted windows stare at the lonely stranger there returning home
Only lighted windows stare at the lonely stranger there returning home


The Doobie Brothers has released many songs over the years besides I Cheat The Hangman. The Doobie Brothers released songs from 1971 to 2000 spanning across albums like The Doobie Brothers, Toulouse Street, The Captain And Me, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, Stampede, Takin' It To The Streets, Livin' On The Fault Line, Minute By Minute, One Step Closer, Cycles, Brotherhood, and Sibling Rivalry. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Doobie Brothers.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1975 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and I Cheat The Hangman by The Doobie Brothers

When you decide to study the lyrics to I Cheat The Hangman, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1975 song by The Doobie Brothers. Some of the lyrics to I Cheat The Hangman have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only The Doobie Brothers and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to I Cheat The Hangman if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to I Cheat The Hangman" means the words set to the music of I Cheat The Hangman, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Doobie Brothers. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to I Cheat The Hangman and the lyrics to I Cheat The Hangman are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Doobie Brothers who came here looking just for the lyrics to I Cheat The Hangman, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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