Murder ballad

This article is about a genre of songs. For the Nick Cave album, see Murder Ballads.

Murder ballads are a sub-genre of the traditional ballad form, the lyrics of which form a narrative describing the events of a murder, often including the lead-up and/or aftermath. Traditional ballads are independent from broadsheet ballads insofar as the typical broadsheet form does not use the same formulas or structures and is rooted in a literate society: traditional ballads flourished within non-literate groups within society.

Description of the genre

A broadsheet murder ballad typically recounts the details of a mythic or true crime — who the victim is, why the murderer decides to kill him or her, how the victim is lured to the murder site and the act itself — followed by the escape and/or capture of the murderer. Often the ballad ends with the murderer in jail or on their way to the gallows, occasionally with a plea for the listener not to copy the evils committed by him as recounted by the singer.

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 in 1958. Other murder ballads tell the tale of the crime from the point of view of the victim, such as "Lord Randall," in which the narrator takes 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 of the criminals without any attempt to arouse sympathy for the criminal. Supernatural revenge wrought by the victim upon the murderer sometimes figures in murder ballads such as "The Twa Sisters" (also known as "Binnorie" or "Minnorie" Child Ballad #10).^{[improper synthesis?]}

History of murder ballads

By the end of the first century of the early modern period in Europe, ballads were being printed and sold on broadsheets.^[1] Murder ballads make up a notable portion of traditional ballads, many of which originated in Scandinavia, England, and Scotland in the premodern era.^[2] 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."^{[improper synthesis?]}

Often the details and locales for a particular murder ballad change as it is sung over time, reflecting the audience and the performer. 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," the original murder ballad set in England.^{[improper synthesis?]}

American murder ballads are often versions of older Old World ballads with any elements of supernatural retribution removed. 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 murder ballad ending with the murder and burial of the victim in a shallow grave.^[3] Olive Burt notes that the murder ballad tradition of the American Old West 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, Cole Younger, 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.^[4]

Cultural references

Tom Lehrer's song, "The Irish Ballad", is famously 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 [such] ballads."^[5]

List of murder ballads

Main page: List of Murder ballads

• "Banks of the Ohio" - Joan Baez, Blue Sky Boys, The Carter Family, Monroe Brothers, Johnny Cash, Doc Watson
• "The Bramble Briar"
• "Charles Guiteau"
• "Child Owlet" - Steeleye Span
• "The Cruel Mother," also known as "Carlisle Hall" and "Fine Flowers in the Valley" - Joan Baez, Richard Dyer-Bennet
• "The Death of Parcy Reed"
• "Down in the Willow Garden," also known as "Rose Connelly" - G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, Wade Mainer, Charlie Monroe, Everly Brothers, Art Garfunkel, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• "Duncan and Brady" - Dave Van Ronk
• "Edward" - Steeleye Span
• "Eggs and Marrowbone" - Richard Dyer-Bennet
• "The Famous Flower of Serving-Men"
• "Frankie and Johnny," also known as "Frankie and Albert" - Mississippi John Hurt, Brook Benton, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash
• "I Hung My Head" - Sting, Johnny Cash
• "In the Pines," also known as "Black Girl" and "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" - Leadbelly, Bill Monroe, Nirvana
• "Jellon Grame" - Broadside Electric
• "The Knoxville Girl" - Blue Sky Boys, Louvin Brothers, Wilburn Brothers, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• "Lamkin" - Martin Carthy, Steeleye Span
• "Lily of the West" - Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, The Chieftains
• "Little Sadie," also known as "Cocaine Blues" - Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Hank Thompson, Uncle Tupelo, Merle Travis, Woody Guthrie, Tony Rice
• "Lizie Wan"
• "Lord Randall" - Josh White, Harry Belafonte
• "The Maid and the Palmer," also known as "The Well Below The Valley"
• "Mary Hamilton" - Joan Baez
• "Omie Wise," also known as "Poor Little Omie Wise" - Clarence Ashley, Dock Boggs, Roscoe Holcomb, Shirley Collins, Pentangle, Doc Watson
• "Poor Ellen Smith" - Molly O'Day, Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper, Stanley Brothers, Country Gentlemen
• "Pretty Polly" - Dock Boggs, Judy Collins, Ralph Stanley, Kristin Hersh, Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny
• "Prince Robert"
• "The River Saile" - The Dubliners
• "Stagger Lee," also known as "Stagolee," "Stackerlee," "Stack O'Lee," "Stack-a-Lee" - Ma Rainey, Mississippi John Hurt, Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington, Memphis Slim, Woody Guthrie, Fats Domino, Lloyd Price, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Grateful Dead
• "Tom Dooley" - Kingston Trio, Lonnie Donegan, Doc Watson
• "The Twa Sisters," also known as "Cruel Sister," "The Two Sisters," "Minnorie," and "Binnorie" - Pentangle, Clannad, Ewan MacColl, Red Clay Ramblers, The Unthanks
• "Young Benjie"
• "Young Hunting," also known as "Henry Lee" and "Love Henry" in the United States^[6] and "Earl Richard" and sometimes "The Proud Girl" in the United Kingdom - Bob Dylan, Dick Justice, Tim Hart, A. L. Lloyd

See also

• List of songs about killers
• Narcocorrido
• Teenage tragedy song

References

1. ^ Schechter, Harold (15 February 2005). Savage pastimes: a cultural history of violent entertainment. Macmillan. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-312-28276-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=Nq3LUaIHWbsC&pg=PA52. Retrieved 1 September 2011. 
2. ^ Child, Francis James; Sargent, Helen Child; Kittredge, George Lyman (1904). English and Scottish popular ballads. Houghton, Mifflin and company. p. xiv. http://books.google.com/books?id=YkY_AAAAYAAJ. Retrieved 1 September 2011. 
3. ^ Wilentz, Sean; Marcus, Greil (2005). The rose & the briar: death, love and liberty in the American ballad. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-393-05954-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=9z0vJTHfoCAC&pg=PA38. Retrieved 31 August 2011. 
4. ^ Burt, Olive (October 1958). "The Minstrelsy of Murder". Western Folklore 17 (4): 263–272. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-373X%28195810%2917%3A4%3C263%3ATMOM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B. 
5. ^ Pafford, J.H.P. (April 1961). "Review: American Murder Ballads and Their Stories by Olive Woolley Burt". The Modern Language Review 56 (2): 260. 
6. ^ Burt, Olive W. (1958). American Murder Ballads and their Stories. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Further reading

• Burt, Olive W. American Murder Ballads and their Stories, Oxford University Press, New York, 1958.
• _____. "Murder Ballads of Mormondom", Western Folklore, 18:2, April 1959, pp. 141-156.
• Bush, Michael E. "Murder Ballads in Appalachia", (thesis) Marshal University, Huntington, West Virginia, 1977.
• Cohen, Daniel A. "The Beautiful Female Murder Victim: Literary Genres and Courtship Practices in the Origins of a Cultural Motif, 1590-1850", Journal of Social History, 31:2, Winter 1997, pp. 277-306.
• O'Brien, Ellen L. "The Most Beautiful Murder: The Transgressive Aesthetics of Murder in Victorian Street Ballads", Victorian Literature and Culture, 28, 2000, pp. 15-37.
• Tunnel, Kenneth D. "99 Years is Almost for Life: Punishment for Violent Crime in Bluegrass Music", The Journal of Popular Culture, 26:3, Winter 1992, pp. 165-181.

Further listening (recorded compilations)

• 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).