Traditional Ballad Angst-Off

[rachelmanija]

Vote for the most angst-worthy traditional ballad! I have cited some, but forgotten the names of others, so feel free to make your own nominations and/or provide titles

Comments

[ide_cyan]

Going by the "you can't angst if you're dead" logic.

[dreamburnt]

The Famous Flower of Serving Men

Ditto!

[rachelmanija]

Drat, I did forget "Matty Groves." Even more annoyingly, I forgot "Crazy Man Michael:" "A raven kept telling me I'd kill my beloved wife, so I lost my temper and killed the raven. Oops! It was actually my wife."

[therck]

I have trouble taking "Matty Groves" seriously because the version I know best is the satiric one that makes fun of the story and includes bits like, "In the interests of brevity, I will omit the part where they get undressed. All thirty-seven verses of it." That version ends, "So the moral of the story is 'Be good, and if you can't be good, be careful, and if you can't be careful, try to keep it down to five or six verses.'

[juliansinger]

On #2-- the thing is, the whole 'I was at sea" thing lets you have a) the angst of being at sea and Waiting Endlessly, b) the angst of getting back and angsting, c) the angst of living with it on /his/ part, and (possibly) d) the angst of living with it on /her/ part.

[rachelmanija]

I detest boats, so I was very tempted by the simple "I hate being a sailor."

[angevin2]

As far as angst-worthy ballads from the heroine's POV go, you really, really can't beat "Prince Heathen"...

[rachelmanija]

Oh. My. God.

OK, that one wins.

[angevin2]

Yeah. Gaaaaah.

Martin Carthy's rendition is just brilliant, too -- I mean, it's the kind of thing that just sort of grabs you and shakes you furiously...

[rushthatspeaks]

Yeah, and Martin Carthy's has the verse where Prince Heathen kills her entire family in an effort to make her cry, too.