Murder ballad
 | This article possibly contains original research. (December 2019) |
| Murder ballad | |
|---|---|
_(14596092379).jpg) Fause Foodrage from The Book of British ballads (1842) | |
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | England, lowland Scotland, Scandinavia, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Germany, in the middle ages, and Ireland |
Murder ballads are a subgenre of the traditional
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.[1] 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."[2]
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 "
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 tradition from the 18th century. Their relation to courtship murders came in with the 19th century.[3]
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).[4] 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, "
African music traditions brought by slaves blended with the conventions.
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.[6]
While in Ukrainian folklore 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 a 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 a fear of him being seduced by bewitching girls. He didn't listen and fell in love with another girl. Hanna brewed a deadly potion and poured it to Hrytz at supper. When he was buried she went to his grave and told 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
Cultural references
List
See also
- List of songs about killers
- Narcocorrido
- Teenage tragedy song
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-992083-9.
- ISBN 978-1-351-54481-8.
- ^ Cohen 1997, p. 298 note 16
- ^ Child, Francis James; Sargent, Helen Child; Kittredge, George Lyman (1904). English and Scottish popular ballads. Houghton, Mifflin and company. p. xiv. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-393-05954-0. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
- JSTOR 1496190.
- JSTOR 3721933.
- ^ Mason, Amelia (10 December 2014). "The Hidden Roots Of 'Hunger Games' Hit Song? Murder Ballads, Civil Rights Hymns". WBUR.org. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
Further reading
- Burt, Olive W. (1958). American Murder Ballads and their Stories. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Burt, Olive W. (April 1959). "Murder Ballads of Mormondom". Western Folklore. 18 (2): 141–156. JSTOR 1496481.
- Bush, Michael E. (1977). Murder Ballads in Appalachia (Thesis). Huntington, West Virginia: Marshal University.
- Cohen, Daniel A. (Winter 1997). "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). Oxford University Press: 277–306. JSTOR 3789940.
- Jones, Miriam (8 November 2017). "Why do we love to sing murder ballads? Tradition, feminism and bluegrass". Overland literary journal.
- O'Brien, Ellen L. (5 October 2000). "'The Most Beautiful Murder': the Transgressive Aesthetics of Murder in Victorian Street Ballads". Victorian Literature and Culture. 28 (1): 15–37. S2CID 162539229.
- Tait, John (2020). "Chapter 3. Murder Ballads". Astonishing Rock Trivia. Melbourne Books. ISBN 978-1925556896.
- Tunnel, Kenneth D. (Winter 1992). "99 Years is Almost for Life: Punishment for Violent Crime in Bluegrass Music". The Journal of Popular Culture. 26 (3): 165–181. .
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).
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