My First Murder Ballad
We thought it might be fun this week to share with you some of why we do what we do in this blog. Â Each of the writers here has their own story about hearing their first murder ballad. Each of … Continue reading →
S. Gee
S. Gee co-founded Murder Ballad Monday in 2012.
Conversations with Death: Clementine
A Sharp Turn A girl. A daughter, a sister, a lover. A prostitute. Ruby lips. Thin, delicate, pretty. Big feet. A fat girl. A clutz, a clod, a chub. A drunk girl. Drowned, lost, forgotten, betrayed. A dead girl. A … Continue reading →
In the Pines: A Guide
On this blog, we often play detective. In fact, thatâs pretty much all we do, and this post is no different, but Iâm going to start by turning the tables. What, if anything, do you make of these fragments?: A … Continue reading →
BANG BANG: POP! goes the murder ballad
Prelude: Battle for the Charts, Battle of the Sexes In 1966, Cher released âBang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),â her biggest solo hit of the 1960s and her first to make the top ten on Billboardâs Hot 100 â … Continue reading →
Ballads of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, Part 2
In my last post, I looked at how â through music â people tried to make sense of the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, in which a group of Mormon militiamen deceived and murdered 120 members of the Baker-Fancher … Continue reading →
Ballads of the Mountain Meadow Massacre
In September of 1857, in a meadow about 300 miles south of Salt Lake City, a group of Mormon militiamen murdered 120 people. The victims were members of the Baker-Fancher wagon train, making their way from Arkansas to California. All … Continue reading →
Bob Dylan’s Desire
Last week, I posted about Bob Dylanâs âHurricane,â his song about Rubin âHurricaneâ Carter, who was twice convicted for a triple homicide and spent almost twenty years in prison before being exonerated in 1985. Carter became a controversial cause cĂŠlèbre in … Continue reading →
Here Comes the Story of the Hurricane
Bob Dylan visiting Rubin âHurricaneâ Carter in prison before launching the âNight of the Hurricaneâ benefit concert, part of the Rolling Thunder Revue Tour (1975) [Note: Just as this post was being finalized, news broke of Rubin Carterâs death. You … Continue reading →
A good man is hard to find (and so is a good woman)
Hellâs Half-Acre, a small badland in Wyoming (Note: This is the third post about Bruce Springsteenâs song âNebraska.â The first post explored the songâs relationship to the case of spree killers Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. The second post … Continue reading →
Badlands and bad seeds
In a previous post on Bruce Springsteenâs âNebraskaâ (the song, not the album), we saw how The Boss ripped the song from the headlines, chronicling the murder spree, conviction, and pending execution of the killer Charlie Starkweather and his girlfriend, … Continue reading →