Gotta love it.When your in the Biz you wear the critical hat.I have done TV and have been asked to produce music but nothing came out.But I can tell you when something is not white balanced on TV.Thanks 7MMmag ((((Hugs))))
It was written after the songwriter had read and was influenced by an old story authored by Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, [link to story] also known in some publications as "A Dead Man's Dream".
From another link, to the Plot Summary at this wikipedia link, the what makes I Cheat The Hangman spooky;
[excerpt]
In a flashback, Farquhar and his wife are relaxing at home one evening when a soldier rides up to the gate. Farquhar, a supporter of the Confederacy, learns from him that Union troops have seized the Owl Creek railroad bridge and repaired it. The soldier suggests that Farquhar might be able to burn the bridge down if he can slip past its guards. He then leaves, but doubles back after nightfall to return north the way he came. The soldier is actually a disguised Union scout who has lured Farquhar into a trap, as any civilian caught interfering with the railroads will be hanged.The story returns to the present, and the rope around Farquhar's neck breaks when he falls from the bridge into the creek. He frees his hands, pulls the noose away, and surfaces to begin his escape. His senses now greatly sharpened, he dives and swims downstream to avoid rifle and cannon fire. Once he is out of range, he leaves the creek to begin the journey to his home, 30 miles away. Farquhar walks all day long through a seemingly endless forest, and that night he begins to hallucinate, seeing strange constellations and hearing whispered voices in an unknown language. He travels on, urged by the thought of his wife and children despite the pains caused by his ordeal. The next morning, after having apparently fallen asleep while walking, he finds himself at the gate to his plantation. He rushes to embrace his wife, but before he can do so, he feels a heavy blow upon the back of his neck; there is a loud noise and a flash of white, and everything goes black.
It is revealed that Farquhar never escaped at all; he imagined the entire third part of the story during the time between falling through the bridge and the noose breaking his neck.
As for the Doobie Brothers song that was influenced by the story, as the songwriter Patrick Simmons is attributed to saying; "It's about a ghost returning to his home after the Civil War and not realizing he's dead".
In end result the man in the story doesn't really cheat the hangman, which changes everything, doesn't it? I'd bet people who followed this explanation, if they not knew of this previous, will never hear that song quite the same as they may have, before, although in Simmon's thoughts the returning soldier is more as full-time ghost, instead of having an ornate and seemingly long, waking fantasy dream sequence while falling, in that briefest moment of time prior to reaching the end of the hangman's rope (as in the famous Bierce story).