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).

History of murder ballads

Murder ballads make up a notable portion of traditional ballads, many of which originate in Scandinavia, England and Scotland. 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 good examples. In these ballads murderous women usually burn while males hang - see the Lamkin and some Scottish versions of The Two Sisters.

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.

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. 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.

List of murder ballads

Main page: List of Murder ballads

• Banks of the Ohio - Blue Sky Boys, The Carter Family, Monroe Brothers, Johnny Cash, Doc Watson
• Child Owlet - Steeleye Span
• The Cruel Mother, also known as Carlisle Hall and Fine Flowers in the Valley - Joan Baez
• 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
• Edward - Steeleye Span
• Frankie and Johnny - Mississippi John Hurt, Brook Benton, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash
• I Hung My Head - Sting, Johnny Cash
• 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, Woodie Guthrie

• Lizie Wan - Kate Bush
• Lord Randall
• 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
• 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, and Binnorie - Pentangle, Clannad
• The River Saile - The Dubliners

See also

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

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.
• _____. "The Minstrelsy of Murder", Western Folklore, 17:4, October 1958, pp.263-272.
• 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.
• Flippo, Chet. "Nashville Skyline: The Subject Was Murder", CMT.com, February 5, 2004.
• 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).