According to Pete Seeger, who sang the song in concert in the 1960s, the song goes back to the 1600s when a despotic emperor was imprisoning people right and left who had opposed him. He hung these prisoners from tall pine trees on top of the hill of Arirang, located outside Seoul. Legend states that one of the prisoners condemned to death, walked his final miles singing of how much he loved his country, and how much he hated to say goodbye to it. It was soon picked up by the other prisoners, where it became a Korean tradition that any man had the right to sing this song before his execution.