Murder Ballad
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Murder ballads are a subgenre of the traditional
ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...
form dealing with a crime or a gruesome death. Their
lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, ...
form a
narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...
describing the events of a
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...
, often including the lead-up and/or aftermath. The term refers to the content, and may be applied to traditional ballads, part of
oral culture Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985), reporte ...
.


Definition

The term ballad, applied to traditional or folk music, means a narrative song. Within ballads, the "event song" is dedicated to narrating a particular event, and the murder ballad is a type of event song in which the event is a murder. This definition can be applied also to songs composed self-consciously within, or with reference to, the traditional generic conventions. Atkinson, referring to traditional English ballads, comments that "there is no shortage of murders in the corpus of ballads ..and few of them are concealed with any success." Perspectives are numerous. Some murder ballads tell the story from the point of view of the murderer, or attempt to portray the murderer in a somewhat sympathetic light, such as " Tom Dooley". A recording of that song sold nearly four million copies for
The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, ...
in 1958. Other murder ballads tell the tale of the crime from the point of view of the victim, such as "
Lord Randall "Lord Randall", or "Lord Randal", () is an Anglo-Scottish border ballad consisting of dialogue between a young Lord and his mother. Similar ballads can be found across Europe in many languages, including Danish, German, Magyar, Irish, Swed ...
", in which the narrator becomes ill and discovers that he has been poisoned. Others tell the story with greater distance, such as " Lamkin", which records the details of the crime and the punishment without any attempt to arouse sympathy for the criminal.
Supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...
revenge Revenge is defined as committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Vengeful forms of justice, such as primitive justice or retributive justice, are often differentiated from more fo ...
wrought by the victim upon the murderer sometimes figures in murder ballads such as "
The Twa Sisters "The Two Sisters" (also known by the Scots title "The Twa Sisters") is a traditional murder ballad, dating at least as far back as the mid 17th century. The song recounts the tale of a girl drowned by her jealous sister. At least 21 English va ...
" (also known as "Binnorie" or "Minnorie"
Child Ballad The Child Ballads are List of the Child Ballads, 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies ...
#10). Daniel A. Cohen comments that the murder ballads should be distinguished from a related genre, "dying verses", intended for reading rather than singing, a
New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
tradition from the 18th century. Their relation to courtship murders came in with the 19th century.


History

Murder ballads make up a notable portion of traditional ballads, many of which originated in Scandinavia, England, and lowland Scotland in the premodern era (suggesting an ultimate Germanic cultural origin). In those, while the murder is committed, the murderer usually suffers justice at the hands of the victim's family, even if the victim and murderer are related (see "Edward/Son David", "The Cruel Brother", and "The Two Sisters" for examples). In these ballads murderous women usually burn while males hang—see "Lamkin" and some Scottish versions of "The Two Sisters". Within the context of the British isles, murder ballads are only found in English and Scots-speaking regions (broadly, England, lowland Scotland, and northeastern Ireland), and are not a feature of Gaelic or Welsh-language music. The details and locales for a particular murder ballad did change over time. For example, " Knoxville Girl" is essentially the same ballad as "The Wexford Girl" with the setting transposed from Ireland to Tennessee—the two of them are based on "The Oxford Girl", a murder ballad set in England. Many American murder ballads are modified versions of
Old World The "Old World" () is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously ...
ballads with any elements of supernatural retribution removed and the focus transferred to the slaughter of the innocent. For example, the English ballad "The Gosport Tragedy" of the 1750s had both murder and vengeance on the murderer by the ghosts of the murdered woman and her unborn baby, who call up a great storm to prevent his ship sailing before tearing him apart. In contrast, the Kentucky version, " Pretty Polly", is a stark and blood-soaked murder ballad with the victim being betrayed by the man she loves, stabbed in the heart, and buried in a shallow grave. The epilogue describes her killer being hanged by the community and his soul burning in hell and a "debt to the Devil" in a few versions. African music traditions brought by slaves blended with the conventions. Olive Burt noted that the murder ballad tradition of the
American Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...
is distinct to some extent from that of ballads rooted in the old broadside tradition, noting that:
Western settlers found murder and bloodshed fascinating, and composed local ballads. But with printing facilities scarce, many of these items were not published at all while others saw fame only briefly in the columns of the local newspapers. As a result, true western ballads of murder—except those about such famous outlaws as
Jesse James Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, Bank robbery, bank and Train robbery, train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James–Younger Gang. Raised in the "Little Dixie (Missouri), Little Dixie" area of M ...
,
Cole Younger Thomas Coleman Younger (January 15, 1844 – March 21, 1916) was an American Confederate guerrilla during the American Civil War and later an outlaw leader with the James–Younger Gang. He was the elder brother of Jim, John and Bob Younge ...
, Sam Bass, and their ilk—have been entirely lost, or are known only to the children of those who knew and sang them. These children are now, of course, old men and women. Some of the best examples of western murder ballads will be lost forever when these people die.
While in
Ukrainian folklore Ukrainian folklore is the folk tradition which has developed in Ukraine and among ethnic Ukrainians. The earliest examples of folklore found in Ukraine is the layer of pan-Slavic folklore that dates back to the ancient Slavic mythology of the Eas ...
tradition the murder ballad genre is not as distinct though there are few folk songs that definitely stand out. One of them is the very popular song from the 18th century called "Oi Ne Khody Hrytsiu"
Don't Go to Party
) written by semi-legendary poet and singer Marusia Churai. In the song a girl named Hanna being in love with a Cossack Hrytz (Greg) warns him not to go to the parties in fear of him being seduced by bewitching girls. He doesn't listen and falls in love with another girl. Hanna brews a deadly potion and gives it to Hrytz at supper. When he is buried she goes to his grave and tells him why she did it. Several historical murder ballads became hit pop songs in the 1950s and 1960s, including the Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" (as mentioned above), which was a #1 ''Billboard'' hit in 1958,
Lloyd Price Lloyd Price (March 9, 1933May 3, 2021) was an American R&B and rock 'n' roll singer, known as "Mr. Personality", after his 1959 million-selling hit, "Personality (Lloyd Price song), Personality". His first recording, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", was a ...
's version of "
Stagger Lee "Stagger Lee" (Roud 4183), also known as "Stagolee" and other variants, is a popular American folk song about the murder of Billy Lyons by "Stag" Lee Shelton, in St. Louis, Missouri, on Christmas 1895. The song was first published in 1911 and f ...
", which reached the top of the chart in 1959, and
Lefty Frizzell William Orville "Lefty" Frizzell (March 31, 1928 – July 19, 1975) was an American country and honky-tonk singer-songwriter. Frizell is known as one of the most influential country music vocal stylists of all time. He has been cited as in ...
's " Long Black Veil", which was a hit for a number of artists over the years.


Cultural references

Tom Lehrer Thomas Andrew Lehrer (; born April 9, 1928) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, who later taught mathematics and musical theater. He recorded pithy and humorous, often Music and politics, political songs that ...
's song, " The Irish Ballad", is a parody of the traditional murder ballad. J.H.P. Pafford, in a review of Olive Burt's ''American Murder Ballads and their Stories'', states that the song contains "a running prose commentary on the incidents described in many
uch Uch (; ), frequently referred to as Uch Sharīf (; ; ''"Noble Uch"''), is a historic city in the Pakistan's Punjab province. Uch may have been founded as Alexandria on the Indus, a town founded by Alexander the Great during his invasion of t ...
ballads".
Suzanne Collins Suzanne Collins (born August 10, 1962) is an American author and television writer who is best known as the author of the young adult literature, young adult Dystopian fiction, dystopian book series ''The Hunger Games''. She is also the author ...
's '' Hunger Games Trilogy'' of books, and the films based upon them, make much of
Katniss Everdeen Katniss Everdeen is a fictional character and the main protagonist of ''The Hunger Games'' trilogy written by American author Suzanne Collins. She is portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence in the film adaptations of the trilogy. Katniss and her family ...
's ability to sing. " The Hanging Tree" was written specifically for the third film; it follows Appalachian murder ballad style. During the late 2010s and early 2020s, murder ballads were reinterpreted to criticise knife crime committed by teenage gangs in London. Welsh guitarist Ren Gill's Story of Jenny and Screech (2019) draws upon
folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...
,
hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...
and
spoken word Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an oral tradition, ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetic ...
to tell the melodramatic story of a teenage robber named James alias Screech who murdered his own sister with an illegal rambo knife, was rejected by his friends, attacked a policeman, and was shot dead by armed police. This was followed in 2022 with a prequel murder ballad about Jenny and Screech's mother Violet, a victim of fatal
domestic abuse Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. In a broader sense, abuse including nonphysical abuse in such settings is called domestic abuse. The term "domestic violence" is often use ...
in "London City, far from pretty, 2005."Last FM
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List


See also

* List of songs about killers *
Narcocorrido A narcocorrido (, "narco-corrido" or ''drug ballad'') is a subgenre of the Regional Mexican corrido (narrative ballad) genre, from which several other genres have evolved. This type of music is heard and produced on both sides of the Mexico–U ...
* Teenage tragedy song


References


Further reading

* * * * * * * *


Further listening

* ''Blood Booze 'n Bones'', Sung by Ed McCurdy, banjo accompaniment by Erik Darling, Elektra Records, 1956 (includes 12-page booklet). * ''Bloody Ballads: Classic British and American Murder Ballads'', Sung by Paul Clayton, Ed. by Kenneth S. Goldstein, Riverside Records, New York, 1956 (includes cover notes). {{Authority control Song forms Folk music 19th century in music 20th century in music