and from the department of non-Oxford links

[angevin2]

eMusic has an article up called The 13 Grisliest Murder Ballads of All Time.

Now, this includes both traditional songs and not (Eminem's "Stan" is on there), But seriously, any list of the grisliest murder ballads that includes legitimate folk songs but not Long Lankin or Child Owlet -- possibly the most violent of the Child canon -- is not to be

Comments

[rachelmanija]

I'm fond of Johnny Cash's "Delia." Bonus points for the conclusion, in which the convicted murderer, haunted by Delia's ghost, advocates murdering all "devilish women."

First time I shot her/I shot her in the side/Hard to watch her suffer/But with the second shot she died.

Nick Cave's... okay, everything, but how about the little-known "John Finn's Wife," in which the psychotic narrator falls in love, gets jealous, and slaughters everyone in sight.

And bringing it all together, Johnny Cash's cover of Nick Cave's "The Mercy Seat," narrated by another psychotic murderer on death row.

"Long Lankin" is the goriest one I actually own a recording of. There was blood all in the kitchen/There was blood all in the hall/There was blood all in the parlor. Even better given that it's from the gleeful slaughter of a baby, by its nurse and some psycho, and for no particular reason that I ever figured out.

[ghost_light]

I love Cash's cover of The Mercy Seat!

[gehayi]

If you want the world's creepiest inversion of a Murder Ballad--a song in which the protagonist is actively trying to prevent death while simultaneously and systemtically destroying someone's ability to speak, move, sense things and live--look no further than the Clockwork Quartet's "The Doctor's Wife." Fair warning: this song is High Octane Nightmare Fuel.

If we're talking grisly, I think that Tom Lehrer's "The Irish Ballad" and Weird Al Yankovic's "The Night Santa Went Crazy" have to count. Comedy songs they may be, but they're both kind of gruesome.

In the former, Sinead drowns her father in the creek, poisons her mother, sets her sister's hair on fire and dances around playing the violin as her sister burns to death, dumps her older brother in the ocean alive but weighted down with stones, and cuts up her infant brother, cuts him up in a stew and serves him to the neighbors.

As for the latter--perkiest song ever, and the victims are elves and reindeer, but...the person going postal is SANTA. Possibly the grisliest lines?

He

[carandol]

My favourite is the wonderfully bleak parody "Endgame", a sequel to Black Jack Davy that Blythe Power did a few years ago in which the wayward wife returns home with a child and murder and genocide ensue...

"So she agreed and we watched amazed as she borrowed a mop from the scullery maid
She took the babe and stopped its mouth ‘til its struggling ceased and its cries gave out
And My Lord said lady welcome now to honour me forever and obey me"

Can't find a decent recording online, but the lyrics are here: http://www.blythpower.co.uk/lyrics/Iron/endgame.htm

[saltedpin]

Ugh, Where the Wild Roses Grow is the weakest by far of Nick Cave's murder ballads (unless it's the b-side version with Blixa Bargeld singing Kylie Minogue's part, which is beautiful and understated) -- Curse of Millhaven, Henry Lee and John Finn's Wife are all MUCH better songs and grislier to boot.

[keestone]

Not exactly a grisly murder ballad and more of a devil-seducer ballad, but Buffy Sainte-Marie's version of The House Carpenter probably would top my list for creepy just because of the way she sings it. (And honestly, I can't believe the list chose The Lighthouse over Nickel Creek's rendition of the same.) I don't think anyone does chilling quite like Buffy Sainte-Marie.

On a semi-related note, anyone have any good suggestions for a traditional ballad to give to ickle firsties who are sort of freaked out by having to analyze the form of a poem? I want to show them exactly where the "ballad form" comes from (they were given Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"), and common meter would probably be a good thing.

[angevin2]

For your purposes, I'd suggest Lord Randal -- it's not in common meter, but it has a lot of the other features I imagine you'd want to illustrate, including the killing and the unpleasant death and the dialogic nature of the lyrics and the repetition and the hey-hey it hurts.

[keestone]

I actually had that open in another tab as a possibility. I'll definitely give it a close look. :D

[kindkit]

"The House Carpenter" is an awesome song. I haven't heard the Buffy Sainte-Marie version, but I used to have one by Daithi Sproule (who occasionally plays with Altan) that I adored. *pouts* Stupid cassettes and their tendency to wear out.