Songfacts®:

• "Hanging Tree" originated at one of Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme's "Desert Sessions," where he would bring groups of musicians and other creative types into the Joshua Tree desert in California and they would make music together. On one of these sojourns, Alain Johannes, known for his work with Chris Cornell and with the band Eleven, took part and wrote the song with Homme. It was first released on the album Desert Sessions Vols. 7 & 8 in 2001, then re-recorded for the Queens Of The Stone Age album Songs For The Deaf in 2002.
• The song was inspired by the surroundings, and is very bleak. Alain Johannes told the story in the book Lanegan.
  
  "It's got such few words," he said. "It's got the image of people hanging in a hanging tree. The visual in my mind started to play out – just being in the desert. And I pictured this song about being betrayed – I guess it plays into Christian theology. And also, being completely left alone, left for dead – doesn't actually mean the person is done. All the images of Joshua Tree – desolate, open space, 'Swaying in the breeze' all that stuff. And then 'As we two are one' is the relationship between light and dark – kind of transcendence through a portal. All these things were just coming to my mind. Really, there are only six lines in the whole song."
• That's Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees singing on this one. Lanegan sings on a few other Songs For The Deaf tracks as well, including "God Is in the Radio" and "Song For The Dead." He and Josh Homme were good friends; Homme toured with Screaming Trees as a guitarist from 1996-1998. Lanegan died in 2022 at 57.
• Dave Grohl was the drummer on this track. Taking a break from Foo Fighters, he played on most of the songs on the album.