Where do you think murder ballads come from? There has always been literature (poems, drama) about murder, but not in the ballad form which almost celebrate with upbeat music, the act of murder and mayhem! I'd like to here your theories...let's get some ideas going!
I'm not the strongest believer in the inherent goodness of people, although I'd really wish to be haha! I know that people can get swept up in violence very easily, I mean, let's just look at the gladiators. That being said, death is also a huge proponent of what makes us behave as we do, as we're just sad apes who have the unfortunate circumstance of knowing of our own mortality. Put together our fascination with death and with violence et voila, that's murder. Is there anything else so strong, so compelling a part of human society as murder? To some degree, we all fear it, and may even daydream of doing it, and then we have the outliers who actually do perform it. Art has been created for lesser topics than murder, so it's very little surprise to me that there is a whole genre of poetry dedicated to it, because art is how humans express emotions and handle hard topics. I don't know, this kind of turned into a loose ended rant but there you go lol
I realize I didn't touch on the upbeat part, but I meant to add it into the thoughts of the heaviness of mortality, because it can be nice to face hard topics with a smile rather than the usual gloom. Dark humor is a potent coping mechanism, and very familiar to me. I also believe that the use of dark humor is becoming more widely used/accepted as time goes on.
I love loose-ended rants ;) that's what the forum is for!
Certainly you are on to something, and it is true that murder is a feature of human nature (sadly), and we even see murder in the Greek myths we looked at. But what is different about murder covered in other genres and murder dealt with in the Ballad genre? Great food for thought!
Maybe "upbeat" was not the right word I chose on reflection. I'm thinking "frivolous" or even "casual" might be a better description. That is quite a new thing in the genre.
If we’re talking about why murder ballads are ‘casual’, maybe that is a byproduct of societal desensitization? I was watching murder documentaries with my mom in elementary school, and I doubt I’m alone in that. Oh, I know, let’s blame violent video games because people love to do that haha!
Bingo! Societal desensitization is exactly it! Now...what historical event caused this desensitization? Getting hotter....
what period of time would we consider murder ballads to have come from? Ive seen examples from the 18th century and claims of influence from many centuries prior. With my current understanding of what a murder ballad is . The reasons stated prior make sense to me for a part of the cause, but an actual historical event leaves me completely at loss for where to even start looking or thinking of an answer.
@Cody K Great question! There are two things that happened: (1) a literary period arose in the 18-19th century that had a certain philosophy of life (we will be looking at this period next week!) that (2) came crashing down in the beginning of the 20th century following this historical event, and is linked to another genre of poetry/literature. Does this get you warmer?
I’m guessing we’re circling back to the world wars as referenced by the poetry we were introduced to in week one!
Murder ballads remind me of old nursery rhymes, some of which have their roots stretching back to the 1300s during the Bubonic plague. The rhymes were a way to teach children about the dire states of society during those tragic times. Traditional ballads had the same informational/educational concepts behind them but perhaps with a more magazine/tabloid like presence. In particular, murder ballads were used to kind of sensationalize the murders they sang about, it was a selling point. We are sensational beings where sex, murder and drugs sell; it is a feature of our society that has yet to be changed. When looking at murder ballads in particular, there seem's to be an emphasis on the murdering of women. Which personally screams of 'crimes of passion' and could lend the ballad an odd jovial feeling, a sense of celebration in the fact that we are sympathetic towards to killer. We identify those passions in the ballad, even the frenetic tones and moods that I could imagine the killer being saturated in throughout the murderous act. In terms of the murder of women, these ballads could have been a way to 'educate' or 'encourage' women to behave 'accordingly' to what was 'acceptable' during the times the ballads originated. For example think of Jack the Ripper, in the same chiding manner nursery rhymes at times were used to inform children of particular harsh realities -so too could murder ballads for the 'wayward' woman facing a murderous reality. In a patriarchal and what I would call a misogynistic society that we live in today, it's truly not surprising women historically tended to be the muse of such murder ballads. Following the enfranchisement of women, a shift in the penmanship of murder ballads began to take place. During the 1940s women weren't just singing murder ballads but were writing and recording their own ballads (and not just of the murderous type!). These women were actively putting women into "positions of power" (Hogg, 2020).
Literary movements of the late 18th-19th century and early 20th century (Romanticism to Realism, Realism to Naturalism?) reflect the drastic and nuanced changes of society following revolutions, civil wars and civil rights movements. Murder ballads would be a prime way to convey these movements and their moral imperative. Romanticizing the often horrific realities.
Murder ballads have their roots intertwined with societies seedy underbelly.
References:
Hogg, K. (2020, March 17). The History of Murder Ballads and the Women Who Flipped the Script [blog post]. https://sheshreds.com/the-history-of-murder-ballads/
Great stuff! Glad to see you got into that article ;)
I like your reminiscence about nursery rhymes, though I would say the key difference between those and murder ballads is that nursery rhymes tend to be metaphorical or allegorical, whereas murder ballads are narrative.
Maybe we should do a section on nursery rhymes!
Cool! Thanks for the clarification and I definitely think it would be a fun section to peruse through!
I think that many murder ballads became popular as songs can be understood as "upbeat" or "frivolous" after the world war. Unlike many comments here, I have not done much research on WHY they became so mainstream, but I would hazard a guess that it was also a way to cope with the mass deaths and horrors these people had to deal with. I have stumbled across several murder ballads that allude to wartime influences. Violence very clearly is becoming more prevalent in our world, through art, video games, and entertainment (TV shows, movies, books, etc) and I think that as this happens, murder ballads are equally as normal.
...just a thought! Might be way off :)
Excellent insight.
Next week, and as Shanelle has guessed, we will be looking at some war poetry among other things, but will do so starting from the vantage point of Romanticism.
Hopefully it will all become clearer next week! But keep sending in your ideas to this and other questions/discussion as they are posted.
This is a very general observation (as in it doesn't get into specifics of origin) but I believe a lot of artistic creations about death arise out of human confrontation with the ungraspable reality of impending mortality. In this way, retelling stories about death, whether real or imaginary, might be a way of controlling the uncontrollable through the use of narrative. In fact, I really enjoyed 'Weile Weile Waile' because in the original version the grim story about death was presented in such a joking and light-hearted way. As a listener, this took the sadness away from the story and almost made it amusing. I also noticed how the mood changed when the same song was played slower and in a lower key: making it heavy and ominous. In this, I believe a large part of the creation of the Murder ballad is a way of providing different perspective, thoughts, and attitudes towards death, those who commit murders, those who are murdered and the idea of mortality altogether.
I really appreciated your insight on the perspectives/attitudes behind death! I am an Indigenous woman from the Tsilhqot'in and we view death in terms of celebration and typically our funeral ceremonies are full of mirth. I just wanted to share!
@savana.marie93 Yes, me too...this was a very thoughtful insight!
@savana.marie93 That's awesome! Thank you for sharing :) I love that perspective of honoring the individual and their life. Where's the Tsilhqot'in region from originally?
I'm loving these responses! Great thoughts ppl....
I've been thinking quite a bit about this, and have been trying to find the right adjective to describe murder ballads, and I've come up with "wry".
What adjectives come to mind for you?
Irresistible, twisted, perhaps even focused?
I have a very limited knowledge of where murder ballads originated from, however after doing some research I have a few possible suggestions. Some places of origin may include Scandinavia, England, and lowland Scotland in the premodern era. I also found that many murder ballads came out of Appalachia. Murder ballads are only found in Scottish and English-speaking regions and not a feature of Welsh and Gaelic language music. Murder ballads are a subgenre of the traditional ballad. Murder ballads describe a crime or a gruesome death with their lyrics describing the events of a murder in great detail, with the inclusion of lead-up and/or aftermath sometimes. These ballads can be chilling and extremely impactful for the consumer, through the story told within the lyrics and the recall of a horrendous event.
This is a great analysis, thank you! As noted in an earlier post, there have always been songs and poems about murder, mayhem and death, but there is a distinct rise of the genre following the 19th century.
Hopefully we can start getting to the root of the issue in the next post!