Strange things did happen here

We took the girl out this weekend to celebrate her 12th birthday with a few friends: a movie matinee and then wood-fired pizza. Hunger games, indeed.



Yes, we saw Mockingjay, and we loved it. Only we saw it in French, so really we saw La Révolte. (I admit I dozed off a couple times, but that was just the French short-circuiting my brain.) Because: Revolution!

One of the best things about the movie is the song, the anthem for the revolution.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

It sounds like an old folk song, but it's not. Turns out, Suzanne Collins wrote the lyrics, and it was set to music specifically for the film.

Not having read the books, I was particularly interested to learn how the song was woven into the story for deeper significances. (See What Is the Origin of Mockingjay’s Haunting Song, "The Hanging Tree"? for more background.)