Renegade

So have you ever heard the song Renegade by Styx? It is a prime example of Foucault’s scaffold. The person in the song is a renegade running from the law. He gets caught and is sentenced to the gallows. He states to his mom that he doesn’t have very long as the hangman in coming down from the gallows. In the old days the sheriff was the county’s judicial ruler, what he said went. This renegade knew he had a price on his head from the law man and that once he was caught he wouldn’t have a say in whether he lived or died. He knew he would be sentenced to death. The sheriffs acted much like Foucault’s sovereign king who ruled over the land and killed those that disobeyed him. I was in my car, on my way home from this class, listening to one of my cd’s when this started playing. I couldn’t stop laughing at the possibility that the writer could have been thinking about Foucault when he wrote it.

Renegade
(Tommy Shaw)

Oh Mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law
Law man has put an end to my running and I
'm so far from my home
The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This'll be the end today
Of the wanted man

Oh Mama, I've been years on the lam and had a high price on my head
Lawman said 'Get him dead or alive' and it's for sure he'll see me dead
Dear Mama I can hear you cryin', you're so scared and all alone
Hangman is comin' down from the gallows and I don't have very long

The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
The judge'll have revenge today
On the wanted man

Oh Mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law
Law man has put an end to my running and I'm so far from my home

The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This'll be the end today
Of the wanted man

http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Styx/Renegade.html