"The Executioner's Rag" (a Minor Thing in C Minor)

While playing a lot of Joplin and other turn-of-the-century stuff, I awoke one day with a rag in a minor key going through my head. I pored over all my music books looking for it, finally realizing I must have dreamed it up. I spend the next three months fleshing it out into a full three-strained rag. As the executioner, I picture a guy in a black hood and a large axe, and I tried to narrate what his life must have been like. Horrible, shunned, angry, scary, but I'm sure he has some hopes and dreams. (Thus the C Major termination, for example.) This rag is dedicated to my friend Sean who shares with me the genesis of our musical interest in our childhood exposure to ragtime. This is, to date, the only full song I've composed. I'm working on another one.