Songs To Die For

 

Three of us went from Richmond to the Baltimore Civic Center to see what was my first big-name arena concert, starring Cream (you can guess how long ago that was!).  It was disappointing, as have been more than half of such events since:  terrible seats, too loud and too short.  Didn't have binoculars then, either.  One of the best shows I've been to was on the far other end of the spectrum at a short-lived venue nearby called The Local Beat.  There were several acts on an intimate stage with fine sound; the standout was a pair of sisters who announced they were going to do "Appalachian murder ballads."  That was a transcendent fifteen minutes.

 These came from England and lowland Scotland before proliferating on these shores and probably had a Germanic or Scandinavian origin.  I did not know when hearing such songs as "Tom Dooley," "Lord Randall," and "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" during the folk era that it was a deep genre.

Unfortunately, I have only one CD (by The Chieftans) which contains two of these, but they are good ones:  Ry Cooder  sings "The Lily of the West" and Mick Jagger does "Long Black Veil," which sounds like an old anonymous tune but was written in 1959.  Its first recording by Lefty Frizell is still regarded as the best.  Johnny Cash's version would have to be second only to that one.  The narrator of the story is the victim's ghost -- chilling.

 Songs which mention deadly events but do not tell the story are close to but do not fit the genre, such as Neil Young's "Down by the River" and Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues."  Johnny Cash's "I Hung My Head," Charlie Monroe's traditional "Down in the Willow Grove" and Waylon Jennings' "Cedartown, Georgia" definitely do.

The Dixie Chicks had a little fun with it in "Goodbye, Earl," where the woman was not going to be the victim and turned the tables on the mal-intentioned Earl.

Murder ballads made their way to the popular record charts with "Mack the Knife," "Stagger Lee" and "Hey Joe," along with many set in the Old West.  The subject matter was definitely there for those cowboy tales of thievery, shootings and hangings, but very many were never published or performed more than locally, and disappeared.

We can't forget to mention Ralph Stanley's "O Death," perfectly done in a primitive Appalachian acapella style.  It goes way back, but the dialogue between the mortal and relentless Death is timeless.